The wedding of the year has kicked off as Jeff Bezos and his bazooka-bosumed fiancée Lauren Sánchez began a week-long extravaganza reportedly at a cost of £35million. Of course, that’s pocket money for the Amazon founder – currently the world’s fourth-richest man, worth around £168 billion. Festivities got underway aboard his 417ft superyacht, Koru, anchored off the coast of Croatia, with a foam party.
Photos over the weekend showed the happy couple smooching on the deck in clouds of bubbles. Him wearing Bermuda shorts and a bucket hat, her in a string bikini, like a pair of horny teenagers on the dancefloor of a nineties nightclub called Cheekos. Never saw the appeal of foam parties myself. I was always put off imagining the night bus home; sodden and stinking of Fairy liquid. But I suspect the £375m Koru offers slightly more elevated facilities than a wall-mounted hand dryer and single-sheet loo roll.
An all-star guest list will descend on Venice for Friday’s ceremony including Oprah Winfrey, Mick Jagger, Katy Perry, Leonardo DiCaprio and Lady Gaga – who is technically on the clock as the wedding singer. A few lesser Trumps are also expected to attend, though it’s unclear whether The Donald himself will make an appearance. His bromance with Elon Musk has cooled, so he may well be in the market for a new mega-billionaire bestie.
But not everyone is rolling out the red carpet. In St Mark’s Square, Greenpeace activists unfurled a massive banner reading: “If you can rent Venice for your wedding day, you can pay more tax.” Oof. It seems Jeff’s bid to rebrand as one of the world’s greatest philanthropists will not come as easy as his vast wealth.
The tycoon has repeatedly insisted he will give away the bulk of it, though he’s yet to provide a timeline or any real details, and notably refused to sign the Giving Pledge – the promise launched by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett encouraging fellow billionaires to donate at least half their fortunes during their lifetimes.
Meanwhile, Amazon remains under intense scrutiny for raking in astronomical profits while dodging corporation tax, pumping out millions of tonnes of pollution, turning its workers into drones (timed even on their toilet breaks) and the rest of us into mindless consumers clicking “Buy Now” on a multi-gym set drunk at 2am (just me?)
Which brings me to the real issue: what on earth do you buy one of the richest couples in the world as a wedding gift? You’d hope they’ve updated their Amazon Wish List – arguably Bezos’s most useful contribution to humanity. Whatever it is, naturally, it should be presented in a cardboard box twenty times bigger than necessary, with enough packing paper to wrap the Rialto Bridge.