A star-studded guest list of celebrities will descend on Venice for the weekend ahead of the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez.
Oprah Winfrey’s private jet landed at Venice’s Marco Polo airport on Thursday, a day after the bride and groom pulled into the Aman Hotel dock on the Grand Canal, travelling via water taxi with security boats in tow.
A few hours later, they slipped out of the hotel, with Sánchez wearing a sleek black and white striped, one-shoulder gown.
The details of the nuptials have been a tightly kept secret, though the locations now appear to have firmed up, as has the guest list.
At least 200 A-listers from show business, politics and finance are expected to take part in the celebrations.
Ivanka Trump, her husband Jared Kushner and their three children arrived Wednesday.
Other celebrities on the guest list, according to two people close to the wedding who spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorised to speak publicly, include:
- Mick Jagger
- Orlando Bloom
- Leonardo Dicaprio
Katy Perry was also on the guest list; however, she will not attend as she is on tour. It comes amid reports she and Bloom have called off their engagement after nearly nine years together.
Italian media also reported the arrivals or presence of:
- Microsoft founder Bill Gates
- Kris Jenner, Kim and Khloe Kardashian
- Diane von Furstenberg and her husband, Barry Diller
- Tom Brady
The wedding has divided Venice, with some activists protesting it as an exploitation of the city by the billionaire Bezos while ordinary residents suffer from overtourism, high housing costs and the constant threat of climate-induced flooding.
Protesters said that their plans to disrupt the arrivals of guests at one of the wedding venues forced organisers to move the event to the more secure Arsenale area beyond Venice’s congested centre.
The city administration has strongly defended the nuptials as keeping with Venice’s tradition as an open city that for centuries has welcomed popes and emperors and ordinary visitors alike.
“We will always respect the right to speak out, but we reject every form of intolerance and prejudice,” Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in Thursday’s edition of Italian newspaper Il Foglio Quotidiano.
“No one in Venice can claim the right of deciding who can enter, who can love, who can celebrate.”
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