Inside Bezos’ Italian wedding extravaganza that’s costing more than you think

Billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and fiancee Lauren Sanchez will get married this week, and rumors are circulating about what the couple could spend for their nuptials.

The wedding celebrations for Bezos and Sanchez will take place over a handful of days this week in the Italian city of Venice. 

Some reports have said the three days of events will have a price tag of around $10 million. If the wedding carries that cost, it would equate to about $50,000 per person, according to Brides.com.

Others have suggested the cost is higher, with the Daily Mail reporting the wedding could potentially be in the $15 million to $20 million range, citing anonymous sources.

FOX Business reached out to Amazon and spokespeople for Bezos and Sanchez for comment about the cost of the couple’s approaching wedding. 

JEFF BEZOS, LAUREN SANCHEZ TO WED DURING THREE-DAY VENICE EXTRAVAGANZA THAT’S SPARKING LOCAL FURY

Approximately 200 people are attending, according to reports.

People magazine reported the official ceremony will take place on Bezos’ $500 million yacht, Koru, which will be anchored in the Venetian lagoon.

A number of locales in Venice have been potentially linked to the celebrations in recent days. One of those is San Giorgio Maggiore, a well-known island in the Venetian lagoon that the BBC reported Bezos and Sanchez’s wedding organizers have booked.

There have been some protests in Venice in the lead-up to Bezos and Sanchez’s wedding.

Lanza & Baucina Limited, the couple’s wedding planners, said in a statement to Fox News Digital that “instructions from our client and our own guiding principles were abundantly clear: the minimizing of any disruptions to the city, the respect for its residents and institutions and the overwhelming employment of locals in the crafting of the events.”

“Rumors of ‘taking over’ the city are entirely false and diametrically opposed to our goals and to reality,” the statement continued. “No exaggerated quantity of water taxis or gondolas have ever been booked, the number of taxis reserved being proportionate for the number of guests.” 

JEFF BEZOS, LAUREN SANCHEZ WEDDING PLANNERS FIGHT BACK AGAINST VENICE TAKEOVER CLAIMS

Officials told NBC that about 30 of the 280 water taxis have been reserved for the wedding festivities, and only three or four hotels will be used for the event. 

The couple is turning to vendors in the Venice area for 80% of their wedding, the Associated Press reported earlier this month.  

Pastry company Rosa Salva, which has been tasked with baking sweets that will be in guest goody bags, is one of the local firms that Bezos and Sanchez are using, according to the outlet.

Another that has been tapped by the couple is reportedly glassware design company Laguna B.

It has been known that Bezos and Sanchez will marry in Venice since March, when the city revealed it would serve as the destination for their June wedding. 

Venice said then that hosting the nuptials would not be an issue and would be “without any disruption whatsoever to the city, its residents and visitors” due to the number of expected guests and Venice’s extensive past holding events like the G20 Economy, the Venice International Film Festival, major conferences and other high-profile parties and weddings.

City officials have made similar comments as the Bezos-Sanchez wedding gets closer.

In December, inaccurate reports that the couple were planning to have a $600 million wedding in Aspen, Colorado, surfaced, prompting Bezos to take to social media.

“Furthermore, this whole thing is completely false – none of this is happening,” the billionaire Amazon founder said on X. “The old adage ‘don’t believe everything you read’ is even more true today than it ever has been.”

The couple, who were both previously married once, have been engaged for about two years. Sanchez told Vogue in November 2023 that she was “looking forward to being Mrs. Bezos,” according to the outlet.

Bezos founded the e-commerce giant Amazon nearly 31 years ago. Bezos also created the aerospace company Blue Origin, which competes with SpaceX, and he owns the Washington Post. 

He had an estimated net worth of $223.5 billion as of late Monday afternoon, per Forbes.

Only three other billionaires — Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg — had personal fortunes larger than his, with their net worths respectively clocking in at $423.9 billion, $251 billion and $241.1 billion, according to the outlet. 

Fox News Digital’s Ashley Hume and Christina Dugan Ramirez contributed to this report.