Money does not impress everyone, Jeff Bezos is discovering. The world’s third richest man is set to get to married in Venice, one of the world’s most famous cities, with nuptials said to be taking place between 23 and 28 June 2025. But the founder of “Earth’s most customer-centric company” and a space rocket manufacturer whose slogan is gradatim ferociter (step-by-step, ferociously) finds himself facing fierce opposition from Venetians, whose own motto is now: “No space for Bezos.”
Protesters in the historic lagoon city have unfurled giant anti-Bezos banners and called for demonstrators to block streets, play loud music, and jump in canals to hamper the union of 61-year-old Bezos with 55-year-old Mexican-American presenter and businesswoman Lauren Sanchez.
Commodification of city
The occasion is expected to involve some 200 guests and a budget of around €10 million, with venues rumoured to include the 10th-century Church of the Abbey of Misericordia and the entire island of San Giorgio Maggiore, opposite St Mark’s Square. Luxury hotels and water taxis are reportedly booked out.
But despite the deep pockets of the wedding’s high rolling couple and their guests, Venetians are unhappy about what they say is the increasing commodification of the city. One of the protest’s organisers, Marta Sottoriva, told Euronews that Bezos is a “symbol for a type of wealth built on the exploitation of the many”, highlighting Amazon’s anti-union stance. The city, which these days has only around 50,000 permanent residents, is suffering “depopulation and the closure of many services and spaces for locals,” she said.
Federica Toninelli, another Venetian activist told the BBC: “Venice is being treated like a showcase, a stage and this wedding is the symbol of the exploitation of the city by outsiders… Venice is now just an asset.”
No big boats, no big weddings
Although other celebrity couples have tied the knot in Venice over the centuries, including George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin in 2014, overtourism has since become a battleground between locals and economists – with Venice one of the destinations on the front line.
The city trialled an access charge for daytrippers on peak days in 2024, a deterrent scheme that has been brought back with a vengeance in 2025. Locals did not like that either however, complaining it made their hometown feel like a theme park.
City authorities have also restricted big cruise liners after a “No Grandi Navi” (No Big Ships) campaign, but they are giving short shrift to the “No Grandi Matrimoni” (No Big Weddings) activists and have attempted to convey a business-as-normal attitude.
As mayor of a city long-associated with love and romance, Luigi Brugnaro recently told press he was “ashamed” of the anti-wedding protesters and hoped Bezos would not change his mind about the venue. The head of the St Mark’s shopkeepers association, Setrak Tokatzian, also slammed the anti-Bezos campaign for causing “hurt” to the city, claiming that without the “work and wealth” brought in by such events, “all we have left is increasingly low-cost tourism.”
Neither Bezos or Sanchez have yet commented on the controversy around what is a second marriage for both but is being sneered at by weary Venetians as the “umpteenth gigantic event” to be held there.
