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The ultra-wealthy are descending on Venice ahead of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez's highly-anticipated nuptials, despite raging protests in the city.
The Amazon billionaire and his bride-to-be are said to have invited 200 people to their three-day Italian wedding, which is due to kick off on Thursday and end on Saturday.
On Tuesday, a copy of the couple's invite was leaked with one very specific request made on behalf of the couple.
They've asked guests not to buy them any presents and told them they'll be making donations to multiple charities working to stop Venice from sinking on attendees' behalf instead.
The star-studded guest list including Leonardo DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Oprah Winfrey, Orlando Bloom, Tom Brady, and Kim Kardashian, who was recently seen on Sanchez's bachelorette.
Other high-profile guests have already landed in the City of Canals, including US First Daughter Ivanka Trump and her family, as well as fashion designer Diane Von Furstenberg.
Ivanka, 43, sported a sand-tone two-piece set with red accents from pricey designer La DoubleJ for the occasion.
The top, which retails for $550, features a cropped length and a bold red embroidery pattern.
She donned the matching $620 skirt, which hit her at the knee and featured the same embroidery pattern as the top. In total, the ensemble comes out to a whopping $1,170.
Her husband Jared Kushner, 44, opted for a linen shirt and his usual khakis for the boat ride to their Italian dwellings.
The couple were accompanied by their three children, Arabella Rose, 13, Joseph Frederick, 10, and Theodore James, eight.
Meanwhile, von Furstenberg appeared to be in a jovial mood as she left Venice Airport by boat, snapping photos of her surroundings as she traveled.
The 78-year-old designer wore a multi-colored, striped suit for the journey.
Many guests are expected to arrive to the lavish wedding via private jet, with at least 95 planes having already requested to land at Venice's Marco Polo Airport.
Other guests, like American Investor Bill Miller and billionaire Shahid Khan, are arriving to the ceremony via yacht. Miller's $70million boat was seen moored off the coast of the Italian city.
Bezos' superyacht, Koru, which includes a bronze goddess statue that shares similarities with his lover Sanchez, is also in the area, moored off the coast of Croatia, which is located across from Italy in the Mediterranean.
The pair threw a foam party onboard the vessel on Friday. The $500 million superyacht is where Bezos popped the question to Sanchez in May 2023.
However, their arrival in Venice has been far from smooth sailing and the couple is being plagued by protesters who are furious the needs of local residents are allegedly being sidelined to make way for wealthy tourists.
Bezos is worth around $224.6 billion and is thought to be spending tens of millions on his wedding.
'If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax,' one gigantic banner read in St. Mark's Square.
Greenpeace and the UK-based collective Everyone Hates Elon have joined protests in Venice attempting to disrupt, or even prevent, the planned wedding celebrations of Amazon founder Bezos this week.
'Jeff Bezos is the second-richest man in the world yet is reported to pay a 1.1 percent true tax rate,' the two groups said in a joint statement. 'The multi-million-dollar wedding is reportedly happening over three days, with the wedding ring alone worth as much as $5million.'
A spokesperson from Everyone Hates Elon said: 'As governments talk about hard choices and struggle to fund public services, Jeff Bezos can afford to shut down half a city for days on end just to get married.'
Venice mayor Luigi Brugnaro and regional governor Luca Zaia have spoken out in favor of the nuptials, which have been dubbed, 'the wedding of the century,' pointing out that the celebrations are expected to bring $23-34million to local businesses.
'This is a city that handles 150,000 people a day,' Zaia told Italian daily Corriere della Sera. 'George Clooney, François-Henri Pinault and Salma Hayek, Alexandre Arnault, Elton John and many others got married here.'
Bezos has also pledged to make sizable charity donations, including $1.16million to Corila - an academic consortium dedicated to studying Venice's lagoon ecosystem - according to Corriere della Sera and Italy's ANSA news agency.
Earlier this month, anti-Bezos banners were hung in Venice from St. Mark's Tower with 'Bezos' in blue capital letters and a red X over it as part of a 'No Space for Bezos' campaign, a play on Bezos' Blue Origin spaceflight venture.
It is not the only scandal clouding their nuptials, as guest Orlando Bloom is expected to attend by himself sans his popstar wife Katy Perry, who is currently on tour in Australia.
It is rumored the actor will debut as a 'single man' at the billionaire's wedding.
A tour guide also accidentally leaked some of the guest list, which revealed that Sanchez's go-to nail artist won't be in attendance.
Beatrice Bavato, a freelance tour guide, was photographed as she waited for guests and staff from London-based wedding planners Lanza & Baucina in the arrivals hall at the lagoon city's airport.
The clipboard she was holding listed names, flight numbers and hotel destinations for some of the 200 guests due to arrive at the iconic Italian city in the next few days.
The list also suggests that the bride suffered a last-minute stressful cancellation: her first choice nail artist is marked in biro as a 'no show'.
Among those listed on Beatrice's clipboard were Mike and Beth George arriving on a British Airways flight from London before being transferred to the Al Redentore luxury apartment complex.
George was a former Amazon executive who became president of the Bezos Academy, a network of tuition-free preschools founded by Jeff Bezos, and he previously led the Echo and Alexa teams at Amazon.
New York-based Jewelry Designer Sandra Leong and her philanthropist husband Robert Gelfond, were marked arrived on a Delta Airlines flight from the Empire State.
Others on the guest list include Elana Jassy, wife of Amazon CEO Andy Jassy.
The lavish event and its extensive guest list will mean beefed-up security, closed streets, monitored airspace and a strong police presence.
Police were already seen doing underwater checks ahead of the events.
Bezos' superyacht will be moored at San Basilio – the closest it can get to the city center due to its fragile ecosystem – and be in sight of the Hotel Cipriani, where many will be lodged.
It is thought Bezos, Sanchez and their immediate families will stay on the nine-bedroom yacht with other guests split between the Cipriani and Aman hotels nearby.
Wedding experts Kunal Madan, the CEO and Founder of DressPreservation.com, and Zoe Buke, from Hitched.co.uk, told DailyMail.com the couple's wedding will likely cost as much as $15million to $20million - depending on venue exclusivity, location planning, and celebrity headcount.
A large amount of the provisions are coming from local businesses, including Rosa Salva, the city’s oldest and most revered bakery.
The couple also suffered a major setback after reportedly being forced to change their venue at the last second.
The original plan was for a huge party at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia on Saturday night, but it has now been moved to another venue in the Arsenale area of the city, according to local media.
Il Gazzettino said the days leading to wedding would be 'tension filled' and the move to the venue was due to it being 'easier to control' as large scale protests are expected.
But they also added 'the winds of war and rising global tensions between the US and Iran' were also being taken into consideration - there is a large American airbase at Aviano just 50 miles away.
On Tuesday a meeting is due to take place between local authorities and police and security teams to discuss the wedding.
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