Jeff Bezos's three-day wedding party in Venice gets under way
Jeff Bezos arrived in Venice on Thursday night and lavished praise on the lagoon city that has been blighted by days of protest over his star-studded, three-day wedding party.
'We love Venice, look at this!' he told The Times, waving his arms around him as he sped down the Grand Canal in a water taxi beside his bride-to-be Lauren Sánchez.
'It can't exist and yet here it is!' the Amazon tycoon added as he passed The Times's boat.
Bezos, 61, and Sánchez, 55, a journalist, were on their way to the first party of their nuptials — an event dubbed by locals 'Jeff in Venice'.
The event was being held behind a police cordon at the 14th-century cloister of Madonna dell'Orto, where guests took cover when a violent thunderstorm and downpour drenched Venice during the evening.
Officers on jet skis patrolled the canals of the surrounding Cannaregio district to keep out protesters who claim the 'wedding of the century' has helped turn Venice into a theme park for the famous.
After weeks of speculation about the guest list, Bill Gates, Kim and Khloé Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, Tom Brady, Queen Rania of Jordan, the singer Usher and the actors Orlando Bloom and Leonardo DiCaprio arrived on Thursday. They joined President Trump's daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner, who earlier visited Venice's Jewish ghetto.
Before Bezos and Sánchez left the Aman Hotel on the Grand Canal, a Bezos lookalike posed for selfies with tourists. Two well-dressed women in a water taxi came alongside a boat containing photographers and handed over ice creams and cold water. 'From Jeff and Lauren,' said one of the women.
The Italian designer Domenico Dolce was seen arriving at the Aman on Thursday afternoon, raising speculation that fashion duo Dolce and Gabbana are dressing Sánchez for the wedding's central event on Friday — a party in an open-air amphitheatre on the Venetian island of San Giorgio Maggiore.
The island is ideal for a wedding party. When the Vatican decided to enter Venice's architecture Biennale exhibition, it commissioned ten architects to build avant-garde chapels among the trees, including one by the British architect Norman Foster.
The couple will round off the weekend with a party on Saturday at Venice's former shipyard — the Arsenale, which is set to be filled with 80,000 roses, according to Italian media. Elton John and Lady Gaga are said to be among the performers at a concert during the weekend.
Extinction Rebellion staged a protest in St Mark's Square on Thursday afternoon, in which an activist unfurled a banner stating 'The One Per Cent Ruins The World', a reference to Bezos's estimated $224 billion fortune. The activist was later detained by police.
• I flaunted it like Lauren Sánchez! My day dressing as Bezos's bride
Over at the supporters' club of local football team Venezia, a group of men enjoying mid-morning glasses of white wine with ice said they did not agree with the protests.
'Why shouldn't they get married? For us it's meant more police, less rubbish and fewer pickpockets,' said gondolier Roberto Orio, 63.
'My only gripe is I wasn't invited,' said retired postman Livio Cappello, 68.
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