It’s been both the most public and secretive wedding of the year.
On Friday, the main event of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s three-day-long Venetian extravaganza culminated in a private ceremony held on the secluded, historic San Giorgio Maggiore island in the San Marco sestiere. In the afternoon, the some 200 members of the celebrity guest list, including the Kardashian-Jenner family, Bill Gates, Karlie Kloss, Oprah Winfrey and Usher were all photographed stepping onto water taxis to ferry them to the festivities, but their visibility ended there, with guests seemingly adhering to an apparent social media blackout once inside each of the weekend’s events.
The ceremony ended discreetly, except for a signal from the fashion world — a Vogue digital cover offering a first look at Sanchez’s gown. After much speculation (and not-so-subtle sightings of designer Domenico Dolce in Venice), it revealed her dress was a custom design by Dolce & Gabbana and was a year and a half in the making. The high-necked lace corseted gown had 180 silk chiffon-covered priest buttons dotting the front.
Over the course of the night, per Vogue, she had two more outfit changes: a sweetheart-neck dress — another reference, this time to the 1946 film “Gilda” — for the wedding dinner, and an intricate cocktail dress featuring 175,000 crystals by Oscar de la Renta.
San Giorgio Maggiore is known for its gleaming marble Renaissance-era basilicas, designed by the Italian architect Andrea Palladio. But there may have been another, more pragmatic reason the couple opted for the island: privacy.