 "People gather to protest against the wedding of Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos and journalist Lauren Sanchez in Venice. AFP")
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and his fiancé Lauren Sanchez have changed their wedding venue.
And it all has to do with inflatable crocs.
Bezos, one of the richest men in the world, was set to marry his bride to be at a magnificent building in Venice.
However, the couple decided to shift their venue after being threatened by activists.
But what happened? What do we know?
Let’s take a closer look:
What happened?
Bezos and Sanchez were to tie the knot this week at the Scuola Grande della Misericordia – a 16th Century building at the heart of Venice.
Around 200 to 250 of the rich and famous – among them Elon Musk, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kim Kardarshian – were set to attend the gala at the former religious school.
Guests had already started arriving to Venice on Tuesday for the “ wedding of the century” – estimated to cost between $7 and $10 million – which is set to conclude on Saturday.
But many in the neighbourhood weren’t happy.
In fact, they had for weeks been threatening action against the preparations and the ceremony – which they complained had been disturbing the peace and threatening to take over the city.
However, Bezos and Sanchez have now been forced to move the grand ceremony to the Arsenale – a famous complex of shipyards in the eastern Castello district built in the 14th Century.
The ‘No Space for Bezos’ group said that the billionaire shifted the venue after activists threatened to block their celebrity guests from arriving.
They said they would do this by filling up the canals with inflatable crocodiles – leaving the guests unable to attend the ceremony.
The group first came into the spotlight after Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro announced that Bezos and Sanchez would be getting married in Venice.
Bezos and Sanchez had announced their engagement in 2003.
Bezos was previously married to MacKenzie Scott, while Sanchez had wed Hollywood agent Patrick Whitesell.
‘Very proud of this’
The group in recent days has put up posters across the city and even hung banners protesting the exploitation of the city.
“We are very proud of this! We are nobodies, we have no money, nothing!” Tommaso Cacciari of the group told the BBC. “We’re just citizens who started organising and we managed to move one of the most powerful people in the world - all the billionaires - out of the city.”
“We feel as if we scored a victory,” another activist from the group told The Guardian. “The crocodile initiative would have given a bad impression of the city – this is why the venue was changed even if the authorities might try to claim it was because of the war.”
Though Brugnaro said he was “ashamed of people like this”, the group now plans to take it one step further.
They say they will now organise an anti-war protest in Venice.
“We have shown once again that Venice is not a servant of the powerful but continues to be rebellious and resistant,” the group wrote on social media. “Now, faced with the war scenario that looms on the horizon, at a time when the eyes of the world are focused on Venice, we invite everyone to join the cry ‘no war.’”
“Bezos comes to Venice only for the party, that’s the problem: this vision of Venice not as a city anymore but like a big theme park where you can hire pieces or all of it and just do your private thing,” Cacciari added. “He’s sending the message that all the city is a background for a party of billionaires.”
A number of other groups increasing Greenpeace Italia and Everyone Hates Elon have joined ‘No Space for Bezos’.
On Monday, a massive picture of Bezos and a sign that read “If you can rent Venice for your wedding you can pay more tax” was put up in Venice.
Greenpeace said the poster showcased the “social and climate injustice” of such events.
“Bezos embodies an economic and social model that is leading us towards collapse,” Greenpeace said in a statement.
It added that “the arrogance of a few billionaires” was destroying the plant.
With inputs from agencies