Stepping out onto their waiting water taxi, ready to traverse the Venetian canals and get the party started at their glamorous, celebrity-filled rehearsal dinner, Jeff and the soon-to-be second Mrs. Bezos finally gave onlookers a glimpse of what we can expect from a wedding said to cost up to $20 million.
While most might have expected the blushing bride to be allowed her moment of triumph, it was Bezos rather than Lauren Sanchez who stepped to the fore.
In a city that several centuries ago set the standards for European excess and ostentation, the king of American tech offered a form of royal wave while his bride lingered, almost nervously, behind him – as immobile as the dress that she was wearing.
Constrictive and costume-like the garment appeared fashioned from fabric more suited to a mannequin (or a piece furniture) than a living woman.
Perhaps taking a cue from the extreme waist training that friend and wedding guest Kim Kardashian famously extolled, Sanchez donned a shimmering gold corset that formed the bodice of a dress whose fabric was as sumptuous as its silhouette was suffocating.
Culled from Schiaparelli’s 2025 couture collection the dress wasn’t bespoke but it certainly took some clout to secure it and comes with a price tag of up to $100,000.
Designed to showcase her impossibly tiny waist and impeccably toned physique, the intricately embroidered floral detailing covered both its skirt and its – unusually for Sanchez – modest neckline.
Sanchez’s choice for her rehearsal dinner, a night which for a bride should be about maximum enjoyment and minimal pressure, seems designed instead to ensure that she will be the soirée’s central attraction at which all her star-studded guests will marvel.
Breezing into his second marriage with a distinctly Italian aesthetic that is both fresh and distinctly modern – crisp white shirt, open collar and a suit no doubt made the finest Italian linen that money can buy – Bezos, looks as comfortable as Sanchez looks contained.
Like everything else about this matrimonial extravaganza, Sanchez’s wardrobe has been a source of frenzied speculation.
Sanchez made her much anticipated Venetian debut Wednesday in a positively restrained vintage Alexander McQueen evening dress circa 2003.
Like everything else about this matrimonial extravaganza, Sanchez’s wardrobe has been a source of frenzied speculation.
Leaving aside the scantily clad bikini she wore for the couple’s now infamous foam party on the deck of Bezos’s superyacht a few days ago, she made her much anticipated Venetian debut Wednesday in a positively restrained vintage Alexander McQueen evening dress circa 2003.
The navy, one shoulder floor length gown, with diagonal white button stripes running across the entire dress was most likely purchased from one of Sanchez’s favorite Hollywood resales shops, the aptly named Timeless Vixen. And it screamed sartorial sensibility (of the billionaire kind) for the moment at hand.
By contrast, Thursday’s Venetian fantasy – one that would have been more apt for one of the city’s famous masquerade balls – is a bizarre decision rendered all the more so when set next to the relaxed relatability of Sanchez’s future husband.
Breezing into his second marriage with a distinctly Italian aesthetic that is both fresh and distinctly modern – crisp white shirt, open collar and a suit no doubt made the finest Italian linen that money can buy – Bezos, looks as comfortable as Sanchez looks contained.
Guests Tom Brady, Orlando Bloom and Leonardo di Caprio all took a leaf out of the tech titan’s classic style book.
But while her groom can move freely and at ease, Sanchez has forced herself into a dress that appears as tight around her bodice as the aesthetic enhancements upon her face and as painfully restrictive as the prenup she has probably signed.
As the power behind this multimillion dollar extravaganza, Bezos, one can only suppose, feels he has every right to enjoy the party that he is in fact paying for.
Because this controversial wedding is as much a demonstration of Bezos’s ability to bring the world to heel as it is of second love.
And his future wife, however exquisitely turned out, remains a metaphor for the disparity that exists between a man who makes his money and the woman who marries into it.
