Inside Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sanchez's wedding: $500 million mega yacht, $32,000 per hotel room and Venice water taxis

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (61) and Lauren Sanchez (55) are getting married this summer in Venice, Italy, almost two years after becoming engaged in May 2023

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos's union with American author Lauren Wendy Sanchez, set for summer 2025 in Italy's Venice, is being touted as the “wedding of the century". Finer details of the couple's bash, as reported by Page Six, will make you believe that it is indeed worthy to be considered as such.

Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos at the Vanity Fair Oscars party after the 97th Academy Awards on March 2, 2025. (Reuters file)

The event is set to be hosted on their $500 million mega yacht, Koru, which will be anchored in the Italian city. Reportedly the largest ever built at 415 feet long, it can host a modest 18 VIPs in its nine cabins, the report added.

Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez on Italian yacht (laurensanchez/ Instagram)

However, sources close to the couple insisted that the yacht is only “involved” as a part of their celebrations and not as a venue due to the country's regulations to protect Venice's famous canal network.

They explained that a yacht of Koru's size has to be anchored in the Arsenale area, which is not as visually appealing as the other parts of the city with canals.

Starting in January, Venice will oblige day-trippers to make reservations and pay a fee to visit the historic lagoon city, in a bid to better manage visitors who often far outnumber residents in the historic centre, clogging narrow streets and heavily-used foot bridges crossing the canals. (Unsplash)

A source also told the Daily Mail that the couple cannot get their way around regulations despite owning billions. “All the money in the world cannot change those regulations. There’s no way that you want to wake up in Venice and not be looking out onto the Grand Canal,” it added.

However, the report, quoting a local media outlet, said the entire fleet of water taxis will be made available to shuttle guests across the canals.

Decorated boats sail on the Grand Canal during the Venice Carnival on February 16, 2025. This year, the theme of one of the most famous carnivals in the world is Casanova, as the 'Serenissima' celebrates the 300th anniversary of the famous man's birth. (AFP)

The Daily Mail reported that Venice's best hotels, the Gritti Palace and Aman Venice, are completely booked from June 26 to June 29. Rooms start at $3,200 a night and go up to ten times that amount, depending on the extent of luxury the guests need.

Bezos proposed to Sanchez in May 2023 with a spectacular pink diamond ring reportedly worth at least $2.5 million. The proposal took place aboard Koru, Bezos’s three-masted sailing yacht.