Many couples go all-out for their wedding. But what exactly does it look like when the third-richest person in the world gets married in one of the most romantic cities in the world?
We could soon find out as billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez, a newscaster turned helicopter pilot, are set to tie the knot in Venice this week.
Business Insider asked luxury wedding planners, who were not involved in the Bezos and Sánchez nuptials, in Venice and elsewhere, to dish on what exactly goes into planning a high-profile wedding like this one.
“Whoever you are, on your wedding day, you want a day that’s more special than your ordinary everyday,” said wedding planner and event producer Sarah Haywood. “But if your ordinary everyday is Jeff Bezos’, that’s a challenge.”
When working on luxury weddings of this scale, the planners said no details would be overlooked.
“There’s a really specific picture of what we’re envisioning, and we’re not leaving anything to chance for these types of weddings,” said Chelsea LaFollette, owner, planner, and designer of Brilliant Event Planning.
As for how much Bezos and Sánchez’s wedding might cost, Roberta Camille Lione, a luxury wedding planner and founder of Italian Knot, said it could get into the eight-figure range.
Lione, who plans luxury weddings in Venice but is not connected to the Bezos wedding, told BI it was “absolutely plausible” for a multi-day, high-end wedding celebration in the city to cost 10 million euros, or about $11.5 million.
She said unconfirmed reports that the wedding will cost 30 million euros seemed quite high, even by luxury standards, but that it was “not impossible — especially if the couple is sparing no expense across accommodations, logistics, entertainment, and design.”
Not your average wedding
“Underneath everything is this huge machine with cogs going around making sure that the event’s going to happen seemingly seamlessly,” Haywood said of luxury weddings. “We’re preempting everything that the bride, the groom, their families, the bridal party, and the guests will want.”
That might mean creating tablescape pictures to pinpoint exactly where every type of fork, knife, and spoon goes. LaFollette said vendor timelines are so granular they’re down to 5-minute intervals.
Whereas most couples might rent a bar, at more upscale weddings, “everything is bespoke,” said Haywood.
“From the platforms that they’re dining on, to the staging, to the bars — anything that you can see has been created especially for them,” in many of these cases, she said.
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Service alone can be a huge cost. For a multi-day celebration, as Bezos and Sánchez’s is expected to be, sometimes a couple can also expect to buy out a hotel just to put the workers up.
“Behind the scenes, we’re often working with 100+ people to really pull these days together from start to finish to take care of every little detail,” LaFollette added.
A hospitality team could also be hired to serve as a concierge for the wedding guests, taking care of their every need, with someone on call 24 hours a day.
Headline entertainment is also not out of the question, and a performer’s technical rider can create some hefty expenses.
“If a global star like Beyoncé were performing, that could add several million euros just for the performance, not to mention staging, production, and logistics,” Lione said.
Another major cost driver would be if the couple is covering the stay for their guests at top-tier hotels, which could run into the millions of euros, she added.
“Transportation is an enormous cost, especially the luxury transportation for hundreds of people multiple times, which can be hundreds of thousands of dollars,” LaFollette said.
And besides the wedding ceremony itself, the events leading up to a destination wedding that turn it into a “mini-vacation” for guests, like a welcome party or a local excursion, can add significantly to the costs for the couple.
Venice poses unique challenges
Haywood said Venice made sense as the destination for Bezos and Sánchez’s wedding, saying, “European glamour is having a bit of a renaissance” right now.
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While details about where the events will take place or where guests will stay have not been made public, several luxury hotels in Venice are largely booked for the week, including the Gritti Palace, Hotel Cipriani, and Aman, which was where George and Amal Clooney got married in 2014.
Two Italy-based wedding planners told BI that while Venice is a stunning location for a wedding, the floating city poses unique logistical challenges.
“With no cars in the city, all transport is via private boats, water taxis, and gondolas. For ultra-VIP events, fleets of luxury boats are arranged to handle guest transfers with discretion and style,” Lione said.
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Giovanna Wurmbrand Stuppach, founder of Anthea Wedding, told BI that a wedding of this reported size, around 200 guests, should not cause major disruptions to residents because they are typically “very discreet” and take place in private venues.
But she said she expects some businesses, from hotels to water taxis to florists, to benefit from the celebrations. “The luxury sector will undoubtedly be the biggest winner in the city. This is certainly not to be underestimated,” she said.
Security, paparazzi, and protests
Weddings of the ultrawealthy also incur some expenses that many others don’t.
There will likely be security watching the perimeter of the space, keeping an eye on the guest list, and even watching out for people flying drones to try to catch a glimpse.
“Nobody wants to have to think about their security plans” for their wedding day, LaFollette says. “But it’s a reality for a lot of these clients.”
Lione said that Venice’s narrow streets and crowded canals means “discreet but robust security details are essential.”
“Coordination with local authorities is often necessary, especially for controlling access to public areas,” she said, adding that VIP guests could also cause fan-driven overcrowding that would need to be managed and planned for.
When the Clooneys got married in Venice over a decade ago, the groom and guests arrived at the Aman via water taxis on the Grand Canal, which was lined with paparazzi and well-wishers.
However, protesters in Venice have said they plan to disrupt the Bezos-Sánchez wedding, so the event organizers are likely also factoring that in when it comes to coordinating transportation and security.
The wedding planners may also coordinate with a couple’s PR teams on the degree of social media posts and publicity that the wedding may or may not have.
Whatever Bezos and Sánchez have in store for their nuptials, LaFollette said the celebrations would be “setting the example of what weddings are going to aspire to for the next few years.”
Do you have a tip or a story to share about Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez’s wedding? Contact these reporters at sjackson@businessinsider.com or kvlamis@businessinsider.com.
