The billionaire and the bombshell have set a date at last, and numerous sources suggest that the wedding of the year, nay, the century, will be a gloriously romantic affair in Venice at the end of June.
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos used to be celebrated for his frugality. He rewarded himself for becoming a billionaire back in 1997 by upgrading his battered Chevy to a Honda Accord.
However, that was when he was married to mousy Princeton graduate MacKenzie Scott. Now they are divorced and he is with pouting, bra-flashing former TV reporter Lauren Sanchez – the Sanchez-era Jeff is living on a rather different scale.
In 2023, the second-richest man in the world presented Sanchez with a $2.5million (£1.9million) diamond ring, which she memorably described as so enormous, she ‘kind of blacked out’ for a moment.
Now that a pre-nuptial agreement is in place, they are ready to tie the knot in a style to knock the world’s socks off.
The bride has revealed that she’s already chosen her dress, thought to be from Oscar de la Renta, and with input from no less a style arbiter than Vogue boss Anna Wintour.
Wintour took Sanchez under her wing before the Met Gala Ball last year, and for that occasion guided her into a de la Renta dress that was slightly subtler than Lauren’s usual style. It did not, at least, feature a visible bra like her Alexander McQueen ensemble for the inauguration of Donald Trump.
Expected guests who are friends of the groom include President Trump, film star Leonardo DiCaprio, fellow mogul Bill Gates and chat-show supremo Oprah Winfrey.
Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg and her husband, billionaire media mogul Barry Diller, are also likely invitees.
Friends of the bride expected at the do include Kim Kardashian and her mother Kris Jenner, singer Barbra Streisand, Queen Rania of Jordan and, of course, La Wintour.
It will be a celebration on a scale that will make George Clooney’s lavish nuptials in the Italian city back in 2014 – featuring Cindy Crawford, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt – look like a church hall gathering over sausage rolls.
Word from Italy suggests that Bezos’s $500million (£386million) yacht Koru may be the venue for the nuptials.
Although it sleeps a relatively modest 18 people in nine cabins, it’s still the largest masted yacht ever built, at 127m long.
It’s where Bezos proposed to Sanchez, and its name means ‘loop’ or ‘coil’ in Maori, signifying ‘new beginnings’.
One local report yesterday said: ‘The event… will take place aboard their $500million mega yacht Koru, anchored in the Venetian Lagoon.’
However, other sources hear that the yacht is only ‘involved’ in the celebrations, perhaps taking guests out for excursions during festivities. One perfectly placed friend said last night: ‘I promise you the wedding is not on the boat.’
Because of regulations designed to protect the city, a yacht of that size would have to anchor out around the Arsenale area, which is not the most beautiful part of the city.
‘All the money in the world cannot change those regulations,’ said one observer. ‘There’s no way that you want to wake up in Venice and not be looking out on to the Grand Canal.’
So where then? It is surely significant that two of the city’s best hotels, the Gritti Palace and the seven-star Aman are both booked out completely from June 26 to June 29.
The Aman, a luxurious boutique 16th century palazzo, is where Clooney and his lawyer wife Amal exchanged vows in a ‘private, symbolic’ ceremony, before heading out the following day to sign the necessary paperwork in a civil ceremony conducted by the mayor at the 14th century Ca’ Farsetti town hall.
Nobody from either hotel was willing to answer questions on the topic yesterday, but we do know rooms start at £2,500 a night at both and can cost up to almost ten times that, depending on the size of the suite and the season.
A local news site said yesterday: ‘In preparation for the event, Venice is bracing for the arrival of VIPs. The city’s top luxury hotels have already been booked, and reports say the entire fleet of water taxis will be made available to shuttle guests across the canals. The logistics point to a highly exclusive, tightly co-ordinated celebration.’
It went on: ‘Choosing Venice is more than a romantic gesture —it’s a nod to the couple’s shared history with the city, which they’ve frequently visited during their relationship… the wedding is poised to be a defining social event of 2025, not only for the couple but for Venice itself.’
A source told me last month: ‘You won’t miss this one when it happens.’
In fact we were all waiting for it to happen last year: Reports circulated that there was to be a ‘winter-wonderland wedding’ in Aspen, Colorado, on December 28 – but the date came and went with no nuptials.
In May, Sanchez will take a space flight on her fiance’s rocket, surely the perfect prelude to marrying a billionaire. She will blast off on the New Shepard — leading an all-female crew of six, including TV anchor Gayle King and pop star Katy Perry — for an 11-minute sub-orbital flight.
Upon her return to Earth, she will embrace convention and take Bezos’s surname upon marriage. ‘Uh, yes, 100 per cent. I am looking forward to being Mrs Bezos,’ she confirmed in 2023.
In another interview, she gushed about her fiance: ‘He’s so happy, he inspires me every day. He makes me a better person every day. He’s the most loving human I know.’
Meanwhile Bezos told CNN: ‘Lauren is the most generous, most big-hearted person that you would ever meet… She never misses a birthday. The network of people that she gives birthday presents to is gigantic. And that’s just a small example.
‘We’re really great teammates, and we also have a lot of fun together. And we love each other.’ Bezos, 61, split from novelist Scott in 2019. It then emerged he had been romancing Sanchez, 55, who was married at the time to influential Hollywood agent Patrick Whitesell.
Whitesell himself has made hundreds of millions of dollars in the talent agency business – although his wealth does not compare to that of Princeton graduate Bezos, who is estimated to be worth $212billion (£164billion). Some suggest the wedding was delayed by the need for a mega-prenup, but friends of Sanchez say that isn’t true.
She’s certainly had plenty of experience of being engaged. When Sanchez started the career that would make her famous as a news anchor, entertainment presenter and eventually the host of the reality dance show So You Think You Can Dance, her romantic life was far from dull.
A rumoured engagement to a sports broadcaster was followed by a romance with NFL star Tony Gonzalez, with whom she had son Nikko in 2001. She and Gonzalez managed to stay good friends – he and his wife Tobie were guests of Bezos and Sanchez at Thanksgiving in 2023.
She also had a liaison with LA Lakers player Derek Fisher and a minor entrée into showbusiness via NYPD Blue actor Henry Simmons, to whom she was also reputedly engaged.
Then she met handsome power agent Patrick Whitesell – seemingly falling for him like a ton of bricks at first sight in 2004 – and apparently ditched Simmons.
‘I’d always ask my friends, ‘How do you know it’s the right one?’ she sighed. ‘Then when I met Patrick, I told them, ‘I so get it’.’ Their wedding – her first – was on a scale to attract attention, with guests including her husband’s starry clients Jennifer Garner, Jessica Alba and Hugh Jackman.
Never backwards at coming forwards, Sanchez gave an interview to People magazine about the festivities, noting: ‘Matt (Damon) and Ben (Affleck) don’t get to see each other often, so we sat them together.’
Her job at So You Think You Can Dance ended when she was pregnant with son Evan. Producers then gave the presenting role to Cat Deeley, although Sanchez’s recollection was that she was ousted unjustly.
Daughter Ella was born in 2008, and from 2011 to 2017, Sanchez was a regular on Good Day LA, a local morning news show. Throughout those years, her family came first.
Son Nikko remembers that his extrovert mum would attend high school football games in self-made merchandise with his number on it. ‘There was not a single year she wasn’t the team mom,’ he said.
In 2011 she received her certification as a pilot – her father Ray had been a flight instructor and a mechanic – then got her helicopter licence.
Cleverly, having seen a commercial opportunity in her hobby, in 2016 she founded Black Ops Aviation, specialising in aerial filming. Through her new gig, and thanks perhaps to connections via her agent husband, she consulted on Christopher Nolan’s film Dunkirk.
She told a magazine: ‘This space is dominated by men, but there’s nothing physical about flying a helicopter.’
By this time, she had met Bezos. Indeed, her husband was working closely with him. Whitesell represented the actress Michelle Williams, who happened to be the star of the Amazon-distributed film Manchester By The Sea.
At some point, a plan took shape for Sanchez and Bezos to work together on a documentary about his space project, Blue Origin. This was described in the tabloids as ‘the $50million alibi’, for during the filming of it the two enjoyed an eight-month affair.
National Enquirer magazine trailed them across five states and 40,000 miles as they enjoyed private jets, swanky limos, helicopter rides, romantic hikes, five-star hotel hideaways and intimate dinner dates. There were reports of red-hot texts and pictures.
When the news came out, Bezos announced the end of his marriage to MacKenzie Scott, and Sanchez and Whitesell also formally split, although there were claims that both wronged spouses had been aware of the love affair for months and that by the time it was exposed, all concerned had moved on.
Scott’s Amazon stock, which made her one of the world’s wealthiest women, may of course have made that easier.
As for the children of the two failed marriages, Bezos’s four with Mackenzie are now at college, while Sanchez’s two with Whitesell are shared on a week-on week-off basis with him.
Today she lives in a number of super-luxurious homes, including a gargantuan Los Angeles mansion, bought by Bezos from David Geffen for $165million (£127million) in 2020, and houses in Washington, Miami, Florida and an immense ranch in West Texas.
Somewhat unbelievably, Sanchez says their lives are ‘pretty normal’ and ‘mostly revolve around the kids’. In the mornings, her coffee comes in a mug which reads: ‘Woke up sexy as hell again.’
Certainly, she’ll be making sure she does on the day in June when the whole world will be watching her wedding.
