Venice, prime wedding spot, braces for a Bezos marital extravaganza

Boston Globe

3 days ago

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Glassblowers, mask makers, and bakeries are counting their euros for a multiday event that has City Hall swooning. Officials project the economic benefits in the low eight digits, including $3.5 million in charitable donations.
But not all of Venice is swooning.
The city's latest wedding bash — a smaller affair compared with some Venetian blowouts, with government officials and one vendor estimating between 200 and 250 guests
— has become a lightning rod for overtourism protesters, eco-activists, and left-wing demonstrators who are hosting a network of events against what they see as a manifestation of the era of the One Percent. Their
slogan
—
'No Space for Bezos' — has popped up on street corners and even a banner across the legendary Rialto Bridge.
On Monday, activists from Greenpeace and the Britain-based group Everyone Hates Elon unfurled a giant image of a laughing Bezos in St. Mark's Square under the words: 'If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax.'
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Demonstrators had threatened to block access to what was expected to be Saturday's main wedding celebration at the Misericordia —
a cavernous venue in northern Venice inaugurated in 1583
—
by
physically throwing themselves in canals. Sensing potential trouble, a decision was made this week to change the location, said a person familiar with the event.
'The decision was taken so as not to harm or create distress for residents, visitors and tourists,' said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential deliberations.
Demonstrators are celebrating the relocation as a 'victory.' The new venue for Saturday's festivities remains officially secret, but protesters say they have tapped an underground network of cleaners, technicians, caterers, and others to pinpoint the new site in a secluded part of the Arsenale complex used to host Venice's annual Biennale art and architectural exhibitions, as well as high-security summits. The venue, city officials say, is more easily monitored and secured. Saying waters in the area are too treacherous to risk their original plan — jumping in canals with inflatable flamingos, ducks, and unicorns, to disrupt boats ferrying guests — protesters are now planning a less invasive Saturday march away from the venue.
'We have already won,' said Tommaso Cacciari, one of the protest organizers and the nephew of a former mayor. 'Bezos wanted to use Venice as a backdrop for his pictures. We used his event to show our fight to the world.'
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City officials, police, and business owners, meanwhile, have pushed back against claims by protesters that Bezos sought to effectively 'buy Venice' for the event, noting that the city has hosted significantly larger and more extravagant affairs. They cite, for instance, the 'Wedding of the Century' that brought Bollywood to the Adriatic for three heady days in 2011. The silk-swathed celebration for an Indian heiress and her betrothed saw 800 guests sup on delicacies from Harry's Bar. There were stilt walkers, billionaires, and a blimp. Shakira crooned. Nobody protested.
Then there was the wedding of George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin in 2014.
'Where were these protesters when George Clooney got married at City Hall, and really did disrupt the streets? This is a private wedding, out of the way. I can't understand this,' said Simone Venturini, the Venice city councilor responsible for the tourism sector. Venturini said he understood that Bezos and Sánchez were to be legally wed in the United States, and were simply hosting their celebrations in Venice.
Bezos and Sánchez declined to comment.
The wedding planners — the boutique agency Lanza & Baucina — also declined an interview request. In a statement, the company condemned the 'misinformation, falsehoods and misunderstandings' that have circulated in Venice about the wedding celebrations. They described the number of water taxis and gondolas booked as not 'excessive' and 'proportionate to the number of guests.' Senior officials estimate that the event has booked roughly 30 of the city's
250
water taxis.
'From the outset, both our client's brief and our guiding principles have been very clear: minimizing the impact of the event on the city, respect for its residents and institutions and the prominent use of local workers in the creation of events,' the Lanza & Baucina statement read. 'The rumors of a 'takeover' of the city are completely false and diametrically opposed to our aims and reality.'
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Bezos, the founder of Amazon, also owns The Washington Post.
In some ways, the Bezos-Sánchez event has become a pawn in a bigger game. Much of Venice has fretted about overtourism. But the mayor and business interests are especially at odds with a small group of die-hard activists angered by high housing prices and the devolution of a once formidable city-state into a Disney-esque playground for shorts-wearing, selfie-taking hordes.
Yet protesters, who include social housing activists, university collectives, workers' rights advocates and anti-cruise-ship groups, say they have particularly targeted Bezos because they see him in a 'political context' — calling the billionaire
a symbol of consumer-driven culture and anti-labor-union animus, and a member of a global elite that has corralled wealth. Fairly or not, some protesters also said they equate him with President Trump.
'We would have protested Bezos even if he came with three people in a wooden boat with oars,' Cacciari said.
Others in Venice, however, see just the opposite — a billionaire spreading his wealth.
Not far from St. Mark's Square, sugary scents waft from the glass counters of the Rosa Salva bakery. The family business founded in 1879 was originally contracted months ago to produce sweets as gifts for a major but anonymous wedding this week. Three weeks ago, as protest fervor built, the owner, Antonio Rosa Salva, was informed that the order — for roughly 200 gift boxes — was for guests of Bezos and Sánchez.
Rosa Salva called the protests shortsighted. Weddings, he said, are responsible for 30 percent of his total annual sales. 'We've done weddings for 500 people, events for 1,800, and nobody ever said a word,' he said. 'The truth is, Venice has been hosting events like this for centuries. It should be a pleasure and honor for us to host this now. We need this.'
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In fact, the Bezos-Sánchez nuptials are happening as the Venice hotel association cites a drop-off in revenue following a banner 2024, a loss it partially attributed to fewer big-spending American tourists. For the association, the protests smack of a self-inflicted wound.
Some people in 'this city want the tourist money, but they want it by mail,' said Claudio Scarpa, director general of the Venice Hotel Association, adding that he believed only a small subsection of the city was up in arms over the Bezos event. 'We should be seeing this as the best possible opportunity to advertise our city.'
In a city highly sensitive to cruise ship traffic, speculation had raged over whether Bezos would sail his three-masted, 417-foot yacht Koru into Venice. The person familiar with the event said the vessel was not expected to enter the city, and Italy's La Repubblica reported the couple had arrived in the area by helicopter. On Wednesday evening, the Koru was located in the waters off nearby Croatia,
according to
Marinetraffic.com
. People magazine on Monday published images of the suds-covered couple aboard the Koru, enjoying what the outlet described as a 'foam party' with guests.
Darco Pellos, the prefect of Venice in charge of public order, said a variety of local and national Italian security forces were being called in this week to keep the peace, given the level of the 'personalities' attending the event. He said he had been informed of the venue change for Saturday.
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Depending on how things go, the event could mark a test of a newly passed national security law that grants authorities the right to detain protesters for obstructing public places. But Pellos said: 'I believe there will be no problems, as on all occasions when dissent has been manifested in this city. Our interest lies in guaranteeing the safety of citizens — those who demonstrate, and those who want this private event.'
Luca Zaia, the governor of Veneto — the region of which Venice is the capital — disclosed this week that Bezos and Sánchez had donated 1 million euros to
CORILA, a group that supports scientific research and preservation efforts on the Venetian lagoon. A person familiar with the donations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss financial details said additional donations of 1 million euros each were made to the Venice Office of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), and to Venice International University.
In an interview, Zaia called the $18 billion-a-year tourism industry the region's most important, and criticized the protests.
'We don't know how much Bezos's wedding will bring,' the governor said of the economic windfall. But, he said, Bezos 'has rented five hotels, about 30 taxis and, from what we understand, it will cost Bezos between 20 [million] and 30 million euros,' he said. 'We'll be awaiting Bezos with open arms.'
For guests, the weather may be more uncomfortable than the protests, with high temperatures approaching 90.
The locations of the week's other wedding-related festivities also remain closely guarded secrets — though word has seeped out of potential locations, both to protesters and the local press.
The town is buzzing over mysterious activity near the Madonna dell'Orto Church in the Cannaregio district. Another rumored spot is San Giorgio Maggiore island, a graceful stretch of historical buildings with sweeping views of St. Mark's Square. Home to a small but ancient cloister of Benedictine monks, it has played host in the past to high-security international summits.
Today, the island is owned by the Italian government and largely managed by the Giorgio Cini Foundation, founded by a former communications minister for Benito Mussolini who later turned against Il Duce. Foundation officials would not comment on rumors of a wedding-related event reportedly being planned in a closed-off park where black gazebos and a metal detector went up 10 days ago. A woman staffing an accreditation booth would only describe it as a 'private event.'
'I do not doubt that Mr. Bezos does great and good things,' Stefano Visintin, the Benedictine abbot on San Giorgio, told the Corriere del Veneto newspaper.
'But a personality of such caliber could have expected to also have enemies, and possibly cause a stir,' Visintin added. 'Couldn't he have gotten married in an isolated villa in Beverly Hills?'