Very little disturbs the peace of the obscure island of San Giovanni Evangelista in Venice, which is connected at times by sandbanks to the neighbouring island of Torcello and enjoys views across the lagoon.
The only dwelling here is a modest five-bedroom home, previously the guesthouse to a convent which was part of a long-destroyed monastery complex. The recorded population? Just 11 souls.
Come tomorrow night, however, it can be revealed that this rural idyll will be hosting Jeff Bezos’s pre-wedding gala dinner.
In addition to bride-to-be Lauren Sanchez, guests are expected to include Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner, plus media mogul Barry Diller and his designer wife Diane von Furstenberg.
There will be around 200 millionaires and billionaires, gathering on long tables in the vineyard, amid ‘Presidential-level security’. They will arrive by boat – it takes around half an hour to get here from the city’s Grand Canal where most are staying.
Sanchez will likely helicopter herself in and land on the floating helipad of their mega-yacht Koru’s support vessel the Abeona – more of which later.
It’s a fair bet that the island of San Giovanni has seen nothing like it. The house on the island, called Villa Baslini, was restored in the 1950s and runs mostly as a very fancy rental, booked solidly for the next two years.
Bezos’s wedding organisers Lanza & Baucina – a company founded by Prince Antonio Licata di Baucina and Counts Aleramo and Riccardo Lanza and based not in Venice, but in a flat in Battersea, South London – must have pulled some strings to secure it for their clients at the very last minute. A fellow wedding planner told me yesterday: ‘This is an inspired choice. Wonderful – not obvious – and very clever.’
For the hiring of Villa Baslini, reputedly the inspiration for Ernest Hemingway’s novel Across The River And Into The Trees, is one of a number of emergency measures which have been put in place as the Bezos-Sanchez wedding has gone from controversy to crisis.
Indeed, a source connected with the wedding yesterday described the groom – worth $224billion as ‘unlucky’ – which sounds like a first for Bezos.
This month the wedding was scaled back after the Bezos-funded all-female Blue Origin space flight drew global criticism for being a joyride for the super-rich – including the bride-to-be, which surely stung.
An accomplished helicopter and plane pilot and former journalist, Sanchez had hoped that the trip would be seen as a great feminist adventure. Instead, she was pilloried for what was seen as a meaningless publicity stunt by a bunch of celebrities in tight-fitting designer spacesuits.
The directive then went out to give what was expected to be the wedding of the century a ‘make-under’.
The couple’s philanthropy has been stressed and friends have been keen to recast the nuptials as a heart-warming family event for just 200 of their nearest and dearest, rather than a showbiz extravaganza or, God forbid, a demonstration of the Amazon founder’s economic power. The budget, which had been reported at $50million, was said to be hovering at more like
$5million. Then, with war erupting in the Middle East, security for the wedding had to be completely rethought and their plans redrawn yet again. The first casualty was Bezos’s yacht. The $500million status symbol was going to be at the centre of festivities and the plan was for it to anchor in San Basilio, Venice’s small passenger terminal to the south of the city for the duration of the festivities. Although the wedding was never going to be on the Koru, it was expected to play a part in events, with a pre-wedding cocktail party on board.
Clipboard clues to the guest list
The names of those among the 200 guests invited to the wedding of the year have been a closely guarded secret – until now.
To the horror of wedding planners last night, a simple clipboard provided the first clues as to who would attend the nuptials, as well as the embarrassing ‘no shows’.
Beatrice Bavato, a freelance tour guide, was photographed as she waited for guests and staff from wedding planners Lanza & Baucina in the city’s airport arrivals hall.
Her clipboard listed names, flight numbers and hotel destinations for some of the guests due to arrive in the next few days. The list also suggests that the bride suffered a last minute cancellation: her first choice nail artist is marked in biro as a ‘no show’.
Others named included pastry chef Cedric Grolet, Dolce & Gabbana designer Samuel Aaron Horowitz and Edoardo Tresoldi, a well-known Italian sculptor.
The wedding will take place on the private island of San Giorgio Maggiore, closed today as it prepares for its biggest and most important event of the year, which is reportedly being held in the private gardens behind the church. A source said: ‘You can only hire this place out if you’re very, very rich.’
But with embarrassing protests against the extravagant event mounting – anti-wedding posters have popped up across Venice saying ‘No Space For Bezos’ – and given heightened global security concerns, the couple have decided that it’s safer to leave the distinctive three-masted vessel anchored off the Croatian island of Cres. Bezos, Sanchez and his family were pictured enjoying a ‘foam party’ on board on Sunday.
And yesterday the Koru’s support yacht Abeona was making its way to Zeca, an uninhabited island near Cres. It’s thought that Bezos and his guests are using it as a way of quite literally sailing under the radar while they enjoy their pre-wedding holiday.
An inside source who is intimately involved in the wedding confirms that the Koru no longer figures in wedding plans and will likely remain anchored on the Croatian coast throughout.
‘This change follows Trump’s raid on Iran and tightened safety measures on potential high-profile American targets.’
The source adds: ‘Bezos is unlucky. He ended up picking the worst days to get married. Trump and Israel are disrupting his celebrations.’
Indeed, it had been reported that Trump was on the guest list – Bezos and Sanchez having had pride of place at his inauguration. In the circumstances it seems inconceivable that he will attend, though his daughter Ivanka has already arrived with husband Jared Kushner.
The Aman Palace and Cipriani Hotel, where the best suites cost £10,000, have been block-booked for wedding guests.
The plan now is for Bezos, Sanchez and their respective families to hop across from Croatia to Venice via private jet or helicopter. There are only two helipads in Venice – one at the airport and one at the Lido. An alternative would be to use the $75million Abeona as that has a helipad and is small enough to dock anywhere in Venice that could be useful.
It can be revealed that there are three key events tomorrow, Friday and Saturday. Tomorrow will be the gala evening event on the private lagoon island of San Giovanni Evangelista.
Friday is wedding day and – as first reported by the Mail – that will take place on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore, a small hop from the Grand Canal where most of the guests are staying.
The island is owned and run by the charitable Cini Foundation and the nuptials will take place in the stunning open air amphitheatre – which they call the ‘green theatre’. Up to 1,500 guests can be seated on the tiers of white Vicenza stone which are punctuated by boxwood espaliers.
The amphitheatre was recently renovated by Foster + Partners, the firm founded by formidable British architect Norman Foster and turned into a picture-perfect performance space, with a canopy to keep out any nosy overflying paparazzo drones.
Afterwards, there will be a dinner, possibly outside, or in the cloisters or in one of the magnificent Palladian state rooms. The island has hosted G7, G20 and Unesco summits in its time.
Local sources confirm there will be fireworks, too. Fashion insiders say Vogue supremo Anna Wintour, who has been consulted by the bride, is expected to come to this event, but many feel that is unlikely as Friday will be Jonathan Anderson’s debut show, in Paris, as the new creative director for Dior which may take priority.
A source indicates that bespoke structures have been going up on San Giorgio, most likely for the wedding dinner. ‘They were offloading scaffolding and other elements there on the amphitheatre side two weeks ago,’ I am told.
As to what the bride will wear, Lauren Sherman of the newsletter Puck says it will be Dolce & Gabbana. Sherman writes: ‘I’ve confirmed that Sanchez will be wearing Dolce & Gabbana for the ceremony for the simple reason that she likes it. Those guys are nice to her and Wintour approves.’
Wintour has apparently also arranged for Bezos to wear a tux from the Italian design duo.
Sherman adds: ‘That means Sanchez will not wear Oscar de la Renta for the ceremony but will certainly do so over the course of the festivities.
‘I imagine she’ll change looks, all of which she paid for, more than a dozen times. Remember that Oscar de la Renta’s designers Laura Kim and Fernando Garcia outfitted Sanchez and her girlfriends for their trip to space.
‘I have also heard that, for one event, the dress code is pyjamas.’ The following day, Saturday, there will be a ball at the Arsenale, the ancient shipyard. It’s not the most romantic part of Venice but it is huge and completely secure, with only one entrance.
It’s often a venue for Biennale art exhibitions and fashion shows, and also for the star-studded amfAR AIDS charity event, and there are huge shipbuilding caverns which can be transformed into spectacular party spaces. The Arsenale is state owned and currently hosts the operational unit of the Mose project, Venice’s flood defence system.
The 14th century Scuola Grande della Misericordia, now a cultural centre, has been mentioned as a venue and protesters have unfurled banners there, but wedding sources say that its position made it ‘logistically unfeasible’ and a spokesman for the Scuola denied last week that they were ever in the running to host a Bezos wedding event.
A local wedding planner who knows the venue says: ‘The Misericordia is a large handsome space but is across two floors so actually not that capacious or practical for a larger group, especially if you have live performances.
‘That’s true of most Venetian venues. Also it’s very much in the middle of the city – quite public for snoopers and tricky for production boat access, unloading, setup etc.’
On top of these three big events, Venice is alive with talk of ‘collateral parties’ in top secret locations on smaller islands of the lagoon including Sacca Sessola, Burano, Giudecca and the cloister of the Madonna dell’Orto, or on board small yachts hired for the wedding. There is also talk of private tours of museums, particularly the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and the Pinault Collection at the Palazzo Grassi.
After the wedding the plan is for the Koru to move on to Taormina in Sicily. Bezos fell in love with the town last year when the couple sailed along Sicily’s coast and the Aeolian Islands.
The belief is that he and Lauren will anchor in Taormina and spend time at the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace – famous for being the host hotel for The White Lotus, season two.
It’s thought that official photographs of the event will appear in Vogue or Vanity Fair magazines.
The nearly-weds met almost ten years ago via Sanchez’s then-husband, Hollywood agent Patrick Whitesell. He represented the actress Michelle Williams who was the star of the 2016 Amazon distributed Oscar-winning film Manchester By The Sea. At some point, a plan took shape for Sanchez and Bezos to work together on a documentary about his space project Blue Origin.
This was described in the tabloids as ‘the $50million alibi’ as during the filming of it the two enjoyed an eight-month affair.
The National Enquirer magazine trailed them across five states and 40,000 miles as they enjoyed private jets, swanky limos, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, five-star hotel hideaways and intimate dinner dates. There were reports of red hot texts and pictures.
When the news came out in 2019, Bezos announced the end of his 25-year marriage to MacKenzie Scott, with whom he has four children. Sanchez also formally split from Whitesell, the father of two of her three children, although there were claims that both wronged spouses had been aware of the love affair for months and that, by the time it was exposed, all concerned had moved on. MacKenzie got Amazon stock which made her one of the world’s wealthiest women.
Bezos and Sanchez got engaged in May 2023, with the Amazon founder giving his girlfriend a pink diamond ring so enormous she later said she ‘nearly blacked out’ when she saw it. It’s apparently worth upwards of $2.5million.
She is now half of one of the richest couples in the world and with that comes a busy philanthropic life. They present the annual Bezos Courage and Civility Award which comes with a $100million grant to be given to charities.
Sanchez is also the Vice Chair of the Bezos Earth Fund, which intends to spend $10billion to try to solve the climate crisis.
She is also involved in the Day 1 Families Fund, which helps homeless families in the US, and the Bezos Academy, which provides tuition-free pre-school education.
The expectation is that the newlyweds will make a substantial donation to Venetian charities.
Planners Lanza & Baucina said in a statement this week: ‘From the outset, instructions from our client and our own guiding principles were abundantly clear: the minimising of any disruption to the city, the respect for its residents and institutions and the overwhelming employment of locals in the crafting of the events.’
The company added: ‘From the outset our client has been honoured to support the city and its all-important lagoon through non-profit organizations and associated projects.’ But well-placed sources in the city say that an announcement of a charitable gift will only come once the wedding is safely over.
‘They don’t want it to look as if they have bought Venice,’ says a source. Perish the thought.
Additional reporting: Silvia Marchetti
