“Secret Affairs, Hidden Jewels: The Untold Saga of a Power Couple’s Rise—Tabloid Bombshells, Forbidden Moments, and a Mysterious 30-Carat Surprise Concealed in the Shadows. What Really Fueled Their Scandalous Journey? Shocking Revelations and Unseen Twists Promise to Rewrite Everything You Thought You Knew About Love and Luxury!”

From the early tabloid reports of their relationship to the 30-carat pink diamond ring hidden under her pillow, a look back at the couple’s evolution.

Lauren Sánchez and Jeff Bezos attend the opening night of “Sunset BLVD” at New York City’s St James Theater in Oct. 2024. (Bruce Glikas/Getty Images)

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez will tie the knot sometime this week during a three-day wedding celebration in Venice, Italy. This will be the second marriage for both the billionaire Amazon founder, 61, and the former journalist and pilot, 55, who have been engaged since 2023.

The exact timing of the wedding has not been made public, but it’s reportedly expected to take place sometime between Thursday and Saturday of this week, with People magazine suggesting the ceremony may be held on Bezos’s $500 million super-yacht, Koru, which will be anchored somewhere in the Venetian lagoon. The New York Times reports that the couple’s nondenominational wedding ceremony will not be held at Venice’s City Hall, due to Italy’s rules around marriage rites.

Approximately 200 guests are expected to attend, the New York Times reported. In addition to the couple’s combined seven children from previous relationships, based on the couple’s two engagement parties in 2023 and Sánchez’s bachelorette party in May, other likely guests include Oprah Winfrey, Gayle King, Diane von Furstenberg, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Bill Gates and Ivanka and Jared Kushner.

Bezos’s yacht, Koru, moored in Théoule-sur-Mer in May near Cannes, France. (Thomas Kronsteiner/Getty Images)

A local source told the New York Times there were nine visiting yachts that had requested to dock in Venice this week. The yachts were said to be associated with the upcoming wedding events, prompting protests by Venice residents and organizations like Greenpeace.

“We have to block Bezos,” one protester told the New York Times. “We have to block this idea of this city as a tourist haven that has driven up housing costs so that most ordinary Venetians can no longer afford to live here.”

Lanza & Baucina, the agency that planned Bezos and Sánchez’s wedding, addressed protesters’ concerns in a statement shared with Yahoo News.

“From the outset, instructions from our client and our own guiding principles were abundantly clear: the minimising of any disruption to the city, the respect for its residents and institutions and the overwhelming employment of locals in the crafting of the events,” the statement said.

The Associated Press, citing “people close to the couple,” also reported that Bezos and Sánchez have sought to pay tribute to the city by relying heavily on local vendors for the event.

“Rumours of ‘taking over’ the city are entirely false and diametrically opposed to our goals and to reality,” Lanza & Baucina said in its statement. “No exaggerated quantity of water taxis or gondolas have ever been booked, the number of taxis reserved being proportionate for the number of guests.”

City officials have also pledged that everything will function normally around the wedding. “We are mutually working and supporting the organizers, to ensure that the event will be absolutely respectful of the fragility and uniqueness of the city,” Venice Mayor Luigi Brugnaro said in a statement in March.

Ahead of the big day, here’s a look back at the evolution of Bezos and Sánchez’s relationship.

2016-2018: Bezos and Sánchez first meet and decide to work together

Bezos and Sánchez first met in December 2016 at the Amazon Studios party for Manchester by the Sea, a meeting that was documented in Brad Stone’s book Amazon Unbound, according to Business Insider. Both of them were married to other people at the time.

Two years later, Bezos hired Sánchez’s company, Black Ops Aviation, to film promotional coverage for Blue Origin, his rocket company. Bezos, who was in a helicopter crash in 2003, credited Sánchez with making him feel more comfortable in the air, the Wall Street Journal reported.

2019: Reports of relationship with Sánchez surface hours after Bezos announces divorce

Sánchez and Bezos at the Wimbledon Championships in July 2019. (Mike Egerton/Getty Images)

Bezos and his now ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, issued a joint statement on Jan. 9, 2019, announcing their divorce after 25 years of marriage. Hours later, People magazine reported that Bezos and Sánchez were dating, citing unnamed sources.

On Jan. 10, the National Enquirer published leaked texts between Bezos and Sánchez, reportedly provided to the publication by Sánchez’s brother in exchange for $200,000, sources told the Wall Street Journal. (The National Enquirer’s 2019 article has since been taken down, but the New York Post also covered the relationship news at the time.)

Bezos and Scott’s divorce was finalized in April 2019, and Sánchez’s now ex-husband, Patrick Whitesell, filed for divorce soon after that.

January 2023: Sánchez gives Wall Street Journal first interview about relationship with Bezos

Bezos and Sánchez attend the 10th annual LACMA Art+Film Gala presented by Gucci at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in November 2021. (Amy Sussman/Getty Images)

In an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal, Sánchez opened up about her personal and professional relationship with Bezos.

“It’s the greatest experience I’ve ever had,” she said. “I’ve always had a career very separate from my partner. I think now that I can work with my partner and be with him all the time. … We love to be together and we love to work together. He’s helping me with the book. He’s getting his pilot’s license. We fly together. We work out together. We’re together all the time.”

May 2023: Bezos proposes

Sánchez subtly shows off her engagement ring as she holds Bezos’s arm at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party in March 2024. (Taylor Hill/Getty Images)

Bezos proposed to Sánchez on his super-yacht near the Cannes Film Festival in the south of France in May 2023. In an interview with Vogue later that year, Sánchez said Bezos hid the ring under her pillow, and she found it before going to sleep.

“When he opened the box, I think I blacked out a bit,” she told Vogue.

Bezos proposed with a 30-carat pink diamond ring that is estimated to be worth between $3 million and $5 million, according to People magazine.

The couple held an engagement party on Koru off the coast of Positano, Italy, in August 2023. Guests included Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kris Jenner. Then they had another engagement party in November 2023 in Beverly Hills, hosted by Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg.

January 2025: Front row at Trump’s inauguration

Priscilla Chan, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sánchez, Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla CEO Elon Musk attend the presidential inauguration at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 20. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The couple received a lot of media attention when they were seen sitting with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Tesla CEO Elon Musk at the second inauguration of President Trump in January of this year.

It was not the first time the tech power couple attended a political event, however. In 2024, Bezos brought Sánchez to a state dinner at the White House in honor of Japan in April, and the couple met with Pope Francis at the Vatican in August.

April 2025: Sánchez goes to space

Sánchez was part of an all-female crew that traveled to space on a flight by Bezos’s company Blue Origin. Others on board the 11-minute expedition included pop singer Katy Perry, television host Gayle King, activist Amanda Nguyen, producer Kerianne Flynn and former NASA scientist Aisha Bowe.

May 2025: Sánchez hosts her bachelorette party in Paris

Sánchez threw a star-studded bachelorette party for herself in Paris, the guest list for which included Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Katy Perry and Eva Longoria, among others, Vogue reported.

“Forever starts with friendship,” Sánchez wrote in the caption of a photo she posted to Instagram from the event, “surrounded by the women who’ve lifted me up, illuminated my path in dark times, and shaped my heart along the way.”