The ‘No Space for Bezos’ Movement Is the Only Good Thing About the Bezos Wedding

For the past week, a group of Venetians has made Jeff Bezos and Laura Sanchez's impending nuptials a little more difficult.

By Audra Heinrichs | June 25, 2025 | 2:20pm

Photo: Getty Images Celebrities Politics

The ‘No Space for Bezos’ Movement Is the Only Good Thing About the Bezos Wedding

In case you didn’t know, Amazon founder and oligarch Jeff Bezos and his fiancée, Lauren Sanchez, are tying the knot in what’s sure to be the most garish wedding in history this weekend in Venice, Italy. Like any obscenely wealthy and egomaniacal couple, Bezos and Sanchez can’t simply have a single ceremony followed by a single celebration. No, they have to extract every ounce of public attention they can for an entire week.

The festivities kicked off on Sunday when the pair threw a foam party for their friends aboard their $500 million yacht, Koru. You read that correctly. A group of 50 and 60-year-old ghouls forced a crew to source a foam machine just so they could lather each other up. Somehow, it gets worse. A pajama party is also reportedly imminent. Now, if neither of those events were enough cause for protest, here’s some more: the couple’s festivities have caused enough disruption to Venice to warrant protest.

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A group of activists who call themselves the No Space for Bezos movement have repeatedly claimed that the Bezos’ nuptials have only negatively impacted natives. Venetians fear their city has become a playground for billionaires, making them “really feel like animals in a zoo, or cartoon characters in Disneyland.” Given the invitees are all one percenters —meaning they’ll arrive by private jet and yacht, effectively clogging the airport and harbor, and have entirely booked at least five hotels—they’re not wrong. Notably, one of the city’s luxury hotels just booted a number of guests to make room for some of the couple’s reported 200 guests. Further, Bezos is not solely relying on local police for security; he’s also employed ex-marines who’ve reportedly been doing “sweeps” of various locations throughout the city.

Since Monday, the No Space For Bezos group has hung multiple anti-Bezos banners on landmarks throughout the city, including this poster on the famed Rialto Bridge, as well as this sign in St. Marks Square that reads: “IF YOU CAN RENT VENICE FOR YOUR WEDDING YOU CAN PAY MORE TAX.” On Tuesday, the group said their actions (read: a plan to fill the canals with inflatable alligators) had forced the couple to at least change their after-party on Saturday, which was originally set to be held at the Scuola Grande di Santa Maria della Misericordia, a 14th-century events space in the city’s center. It’s since been moved four miles away to the Arsenale.

“We’re just citizens who started organizing and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world—all the billionaires—out of the city,” one organizer told the BBC.

Still, sources say the couple has accounted for this and booked “several venues” across a range of dates: “The strategy serves both to mislead paparazzi and protesters, and to ensure contingency plans in the event of last-minute logistical setbacks,” a “Venetian insider” told Page Six. Logistical setbacks, of course, refer to scores of people rightfully protesting their very existence.

Upon their arrival on Wednesday, a seemingly unaware Bezos and Sanchez did a pap walk outside one of the hotels they’ve colonized for the next few days. Up next is a rehearsal dinner on Thursday, then the ceremony and reception on Friday, and finally, the after-party on Saturday. All in all, it’s estimated that their wedding will cost between $64 and $76 million. Frankly, that seems an underestimation considering the five hotels and the multiple venues and, hey, the foam machine had to cost a pretty penny too…

So far, Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have been spotted arriving in Venice, but there’s been no sign yet of their other reported guests, like Leonardo DiCaprio, Mick Jagger, Kim Kardashian, Oprah Winfrey, or a newly single Orlando Bloom.

The No Space For Bezos, however, plans to be ever-present. Here’s hoping they follow through on the whole inflatable alligators thing…

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