Stop moaning about Jeff Bezos’s wedding

Guests have been gathering in Venice over the past few days for what some in the press have dubbed the ‘wedding of the century’, between Amazon owner Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sánchez. The 200-plus attendees at Friday’s actual ceremony included the likes of Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kim Kardashian. It’s a who’s who of US celebdom.

Yet while the celebrations, due to end on Sunday, have been the centre of quite a bit of starstruck media attention, they’ve also become the focus of a lot of noisy protests. So much so that this week, the venue for the main marriage ceremony was moved due to security concerns. It was due to be held at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a former religious school in the central Cannaregio district. But concerned about the presence of protesters, Bezos moved the wedding to a hall in the former Arsenale shipyard complex.

The protesters have many overlapping grievances. Those organised under the banner of ‘No Space for Bezos’ object to a billionaire being able to rent and close off parts of the city for several days on end. Little wonder Tommaso Cacciari, a leading figure in the movement, greeted the news that Bezos had changed venues as ‘a great victory for us’.

Other protesters’ motives extend well beyond Bezos, of course. Indeed, No Space for Bezos itself emerged from previous campaigns against Venice city council. Activists claim the council is all too happy promoting tourism for wealthy visitors while it ignores the needs of city residents.

These Venice-specific concerns have combined with what the Financial Times describes as broader objections to tech-driven capitalism and the treatment of gig-economy workers. As activist Marta Sottoriva put it: ‘Bezos is exploiting the city in the same way that he has been exploiting workers worldwide to build his empire.’

Others have used the wedding to accuse the super rich of not paying enough tax and not doing enough to fight climate change. On Monday, activists from Greenpeace Italy and British group ‘Everyone Hates Elon’ displayed a 400-square-metre banner on Venice’s St Mark’s Square, which read, ‘If you can rent Venice for your wedding, you can pay more tax’. The following day, protesters from Extinction Rebellion (XR) hung a banner from a crane in front of the luxurious Danieli Hotel which read, ‘Tax the rich to give back to the planet’. Another XR protest on Wednesday in St Mark’s Square was halted by police.

Environmentalist objections to the celebrations are hardly a surprise. A sinking Venice has long been used as a symbol of the climate crisis. As Greenpeace campaigner Clara Thompson put it, ‘extreme wealth [and] privilege’ is being celebrated in ‘one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable cities’.

Yet while protesters focus on the perceived injustices symbolised by Bezos’s wedding celebrations, they ignore the positive impact these types of events have on the city and region. Indeed, numerous Venetian workers, organisations and businesses will benefit directly from the wedding celebrations. Bezos and Sánchez have donated €3million to three organisations in the city – lagoon research-body CORILA, Venice International University and the city’s UNESCO Office. Renting the Arsenale alone will cost the couple €200,000.

On top of that, the celebrations will enhance Venice’s reputation as the leader of Italy’s wedding-events sector. Luigino Cassan, owner of La Dogaressa Catering, estimates that there are ‘around 8,000 workers involved [in the sector] and an estimated annual turnover of €400million’ in the wider Veneto region.

Given this, the demonstrations against rich people getting married and spending a fortune in Venice seem more than a little counterproductive. These lavish celebrations are good for Venice and the locale.

Above all, the location of a couples’ nuptials should be up to the couple involved, not assorted green campaigners and activists. If they had their way, no doubt my own big day would have been ruined in 1997. That was when I celebrated my wedding to my wife, Laura. In Venice.

Dominic Standish lectures for the University of Iowa and works with the Collins College of Business Center for Energy Studies at Tulsa University. He is the author of Venice in Environmental Peril? Myth and Reality.