The Kardashians are among the first A-listers to arrive in Venice ahead of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s lavish $20 million wedding.
Kim Kardashian, along with sister Khloe and mother Kris Jenner, was spotted boarding a water taxi in the city on Thursday.
The trio are among the many famous faces jetting into Italy for the billionaire couple’s star-studded nuptials, dubbed the “wedding of the century.”
Also on Thursday, Kim, whom attended Sanchez’s lavish hen weekend in Paris last month, was seen warmly greeting Orlando Bloom, who is currently facing reports of a split from fiancée Katy Perry.
Oprah Winfrey also made a quieter arrival to Venice’s Marco Polo airport, with other famous faces expected to attend include Ivanka Trump and Gayle King, the CBS anchor who joined Sanchez on a Blue Origin space flight in April.
According to Italian media, at least 95 private jets have requested landing slots at Venice's Marco Polo Airport in the lead-up to the event.
Around 200 guests are expected to attend the ceremony at the 15th-century Madonna dell’Orto church, followed by a banquet on the private island of San Giovanni Evangelista.
Luxury venues across Venice have been booked out for the celebrations, including the five-star Aman Venice, where rooms reportedly reach £10,000 a night.
According to The Sun around 80% of the event’s goods and services are being sourced from local Italian suppliers.
However, the celebrations started earlier this week, with guests joining the couple on Bezos’ £370 million superyacht, Koru, anchored off the coast of Croatia.
The arrival of high-profile guests ahead of the nuptials comes as protesters in Venice declared an “enormous victory”, claiming the Amazon billionaire and his wedding party were forced to “run away” and relocate their main celebration.
Bezos, 61, has faced backlash from locals who claim the star-studded ceremony is “taking over the city”.
He has hired former US marines to provide security for the nuptials, due to take place over three days from June 26.
The lavish wedding was reportedly supposed to culminate in an event on Saturday at the sumptuous Scuola Grande della Misericordia.
But a local official confirmed to BBC News guests will gather instead at the Arsenale, further from the city centre.
Tommaso Cacciari, from a group calling itself No Space for Bezos, said: “We are very proud of this! We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!
Greenpeace on Monday joined the smattering of protests in Venice against the upcoming wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 24, 2025
Protesters unfurled a giant banner in St. Mark’s Square. Local police quickly folded it up and took it away. pic.twitter.com/etDpnRIYSt
“We’re just citizens who started organising and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world - all the billionaires - out of the city.”
The A-list mega-event has attracted protests from a range of groups, from locals fighting over-tourism in Venice to climate change activists and those who oppose Bezos' support for Donald Trump.
Activists from Greenpeace and a group called Everyone Hates Elon unfurled a banner in St Mark’s Square showing Bezos’s face and the words: “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax.”
Demonstrators plan to block the city’s canals and alleyways to hinder the 200 or so guests.
