Report: Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sánchez, VIP Guests Forced to ‘Run Away’ from Venice Wedding Venue amid Rise in Protests

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and his fiancé, Lauren Sánchez, are reportedly moving one of their wedding venues to a former Italian shipyard — completely surrounded by water — due to security concerns following a rise in protests in Venice, Italy, against the couple’s forthcoming wedding events.

Some 200 to 250 high-profile guests are expected to arrive in Venice after Bezos and Sánchez’s wedding ceremony, to which residents and pressure groups have reacted by accusing the U.S. billionaires of turning their “scenic city of gondolas and palazzi into a private amusement park for the rich,” Reuters reported.

In addition to protesters’ claims that Venice will be disrupted by the A-list wedding, some of the disruptors have reportedly cited their opposition to Bezos over his newfound support for President Donald Trump.

Bezos and Sánchez initially planned to hold a wedding party at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia in Venice, but are now moving the event to Arsensale, an area of the city that is completely surrounded by water and impossible to reach by land while connecting bridges are raised, according to multiple reports.

Now that the venue location is being changed, protesters are claiming an “enormous victory” and crediting themselves for forcing the couple and their wedding guests “run away” from the city center, BBC News reported.

“The news that Bezos has run away from the Misericordia is a great victory for us,” Tommaso Cacciari, a leader of the protest group “No Space for Bezos,” told Reuters.

“We are very proud of this! We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!” Cacciari exclaimed to BBC News. “We’re just citizens who started organizing and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world.”

The group, however, plans to continue their protests throughout the city Saturday, promising to make the wedding a “nightmare” for all who attend.

But not everyone in Italy is happy with the protesters causing a ruckus for the city’s foreign visitors.

Luca Zaia, President of Veneto — the region that houses Venice — condemned the protests, reminding the public that Bezos and Sánchez’s wedding festivities will rake in more than $55 million in revenue for local businesses in Venice, a city that has relied on tourism as a key part of its economy for centuries.

“Knowing that world-renowned personalities choose not only to celebrate important moments in their lives in Venice, but also to make a concrete contribution to its protection, is a strong sign of love and responsibility,” Zaia said in a X post Monday.

“The Veneto region gratefully welcomes this gesture,” the Veneto president added.