• Jeff Bezos' wedding to Lauren Sánchez is set to take place this week in Venice.
• Power players in the business and political spheres have begun to arrive in Italy to celebrate.
• The wedding has also drawn unwelcome guests: protesters.

Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez's multiday wedding is kicking off this week, and power players from the worlds of politics, business, and Hollywood are set to converge in Venice to celebrate.

The Amazon founder and his fiancée, a former news anchor, are getting married in the Floating City in front of about 200 of their closest family and friends.

Some of the famous faces expected to attend have already begun to arrive in Italy.

First daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, arrived at Venice's Marco Polo airport on Tuesday and were photographed taking a water taxi to the St. Regis hotel. Fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, who has a home in Venice, was also photographed arriving at Marco Polo.

According to social media posts, Tony Gonzalez, the NFL Hall of Famer and Sanchez's ex-boyfriend, and his family are in Italy, including his current wife — and Sánchez's close friend — October Gonzalez. Fox Sports broadcaster Charissa Thompson has posted from Lake Como.

Both October and Thompson were at Sanchez's star-studded bachelorette party. Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and Katy Perry also flew to Paris in May to celebrate the bride-to-be.

The guest lists at Bezos and Sánchez's two engagement parties — one on Bezos' yacht Koru and the other at billionaire Barry Diller and von Furstenberg's Beverly Hills home — may also provide a preview of who will attend the actual nuptials. The previous events included Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Since Bezos and Sanchez's relationship went public in 2019, they have been a fixture of A-list events, such as the Met Gala, Vanity Fair Oscars Party, and Formula 1 races, often photographed with celebrities, rather than people from the tech world.

Guests are expected to stay at some of the city's most expensive hotels, like The Gritti Palace, Hotel Cipriani, and Aman, which are largely booked for the week. Rooms at these properties can cost upward of $10,000 a night.

Some unwelcome guests are also planning on attending. Venice locals have been protesting against Bezos ahead of the wedding this month, with signs posted around the city that read "No space for Bezos."

Protest organizers, who have cited concerns with overtourism, have vowed to disrupt the wedding, saying they would potentially try to block access to some venues. The city, for its part, has denounced the protests and said it welcomes the wedding.

Here is the full list of reported wedding guests:

• Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner
• Diane von Furstenberg
• Tony and October Gonzalez
• Charissa Thompson

This list is being updated as attendees arrive in Venice.

• Revenue for Prime — Logan Paul and KSI's energy drink — fell more than 70% in the UK last year.
• The hype around the once buzzy drink has moderated, the brand said.
• The company has also faced multiple lawsuits from vendor partners.

The hype for energy drink-maker Prime Hydration is drying up.

When YouTubers Logan Paul and KSI launched the Prime brand in 2022, demand was so high that a secondary black market formed among UK school children.

But the buzz didn't last. In 2024, the company's UK revenue fell about 70% from the previous year, according to public filings. The company pulled in around £33 million (roughly $45 million) in 2024 drink sales, compared to £120 million (about $163 million) the prior year.

Consumer interest in its brand has moderated, the company wrote. It's entering a "strategic review process to transition from an initial hyper-growth phase to a more sustainable, long-term presence in the market," it said.

Prime remained profitable in the UK in 2024, with about £312,000 in profit, a 92% drop compared to the previous year.

There are indications that the heat has cooled off elsewhere, too.

US sales declined through the first half of last year, according to estimates from the market insights firm Numerator. As of June 2024, Prime sales in the US were down 40% from the previous year, based on purchase data the firm compiled from its panel of 150,000 US consumers. Numerator attributed the decline to a lack of new buyers, as well as less frequent purchasing and a drop in spending per unit from existing customers. The decline in sales outpaced broader declines in sales in the energy drink and sports drink categories, the company said.

Prime entered the global beverage market with a roar, bolstered by the marketing might of its social-media-famous cofounders. In 2023, Bloomberg reported that the company was profitable and set to hit $1.2 billion in sales that year, its first full year in business. The company, alongside other creator product lines like Alex Cooper's Unwell drinks or MrBeast's chocolate brand Feastables, shows the power of social media influencers to make a brand go viral.

But influencer businesses can be fickle, and building a brand that can stand the test of time can be tough. Take fashion influencer Arielle Charnas' clothing brand Something Navy, which earned $32 million in revenue in its first year, but saw sales falter a couple of years later.

"The upside of the influencer-led, social approach to beverage marketing is that it allows you to capitalize quickly on short-term cultural trends, leading to the huge surge," Euromonitor beverage analyst Howard Telford told BI in a statement last year. "But there is a big risk that this turns into a short-term viral fad unless the product itself (rather than the celebrity of the founders) can serve a real consumer need."

Prime's vendors have sued, alleging missed payments

Prime's business woes have extended beyond its declining drink sales.

Several of the company's vendors filed lawsuits against it, saying Prime had failed to meet its contract commitments.

Last year, one of Prime's suppliers sued Prime's parent company for $68 million. Refresco, a beverage-bottling company, accused Prime of breaching a 2023 contract in which it committed to ordering 18.5 million cases annually over three years.

Prime sales were "falling well below" expectations, Refresco's lawyer wrote in the complaint, blaming the decline on "fading social media buzz" and a series of lawsuits.

The case was eventually dismissed on the grounds of jurisdiction.

Another vendor, Agrovana, also sued Prime last year. The Massachusetts-based importer, which provides Prime with ingredients, accused the beverage brand of not paying for products it had ordered in binding purchase agreements.

"Sometime in early 2024 or thereabouts, sales of Prime's drinks sputtered, apparently as a result of normal seasonal fluctuations, of the fading popularity of Paul and KSI, and diminishing effectiveness of its on-line marketing," the complaint says. It alleged the company experienced "cash-flow issues" and was "working to secure credit lines to pay the outstanding invoices."

Prime denied the allegations, requested the complaint be dismissed, and submitted a counterclaim, alleging Agrovana did not comply with quality standards.

In response, Agrovana said that "Prime's complaints were motivated by its inability to sell its finished product as a result of factors that Agrovana had nothing to do with."

The case is ongoing.

Prime did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez will wed in Venice this week.
• The event is expected to have a star-studded guest list drawing from the worlds of politics, Hollywood, and business.
• The couple went public with their relationship in 2019 and became engaged in 2023.

Private planes and yachts are headed to Venice, Italy, this week as the rich and famous gather for what is sure to be among the most extravagant weddings of the season: that of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez.

While Bezos, 61, and Sánchez, 55, who went public with their relationship in January 2019, have yet to share any details about the event, the wedding has sparked both intrigue and anger.

The couple invited about 200 guests, the city of Venice said in a statement, and London-based Lanza and Baucina, a discreet event production firm, is planning the festivities.

Media reports have speculated that Bezos' $500 million superyacht Koru and the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a large-scale event space, could serve as venues.

As could be expected with the third-richest person in the world, the event will likely be costly.

Roberta Camille Lione, a luxury wedding planner and founder of Italian Knot, told Business Insider that a budget of more than 10 million euros, or about $11.5 million, is plausible for a high-end, multiday celebration in Venice.

"European glamour is having a bit of a renaissance" right now, luxury wedding planner and event producer Sarah Haywood told BI.

"Whoever you are, on your wedding day, you want a day that's more special than your ordinary everyday," Haywood said. "But if your ordinary everyday is Jeff Bezos', that's a challenge."

Here's what we know about the highly anticipated event so far.

The wedding is expected to draw a star-studded guest list — and protests

On Tuesday, A-listers started to arrive in Venice ahead of the event. Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner were photographed taking a water taxi to the St. Regis hotel, while Diane von Furstenberg was spotted landing at the Marco Polo hotel.

If their two engagement parties — one on Koru and the other at billionaire Barry Diller and von Furstenberg's Beverly Hills home — are any indication, the wedding will be a gathering of the world's most powerful people. Guests at the two previous events included Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Sánchez's bachelorette party in Paris was just as star-studded, with Kris Jenner, Kim Kardashian, and Katy Perry in attendance.

The guests are expected to stay at some of the city's most luxurious hotels. The Gritti Palace, Hotel Cipriani, and Aman, where rooms can cost upward of $10,000 a night, are largely booked for the week.

While Venice has insisted it is equipped to handle the ceremony, citing its "experience in international events much larger than this," the event has already sparked protests from Venice locals concerned about overtourism. Protest organizers, who put up signs that say "No space for Bezos," have also said they plan to disrupt the wedding.

A spokesperson for Bezos and Sánchez declined to confirm details of the event, but pointed to a statement from planner Lanza and Baucina.

"Rumours of 'taking over' the city are entirely false and diametrically opposed to our goals and to reality," the statement said. "No exaggerated quantity of water taxis or gondolas have ever been booked, the number of taxis reserved being proportionate for the number of guests."

"As Municipality of Venice, from the beginning, 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. For this reason, we will work together for best result. Whoever loves Venice will always be welcome," Luigi Brugnaro, the mayor of Venice, said in a statement.

The story of Bezos and Sánchez

Bezos and Sánchez have been together since at least January 2019, when the National Enquirer tabloid newspaper outed their relationship, saying it had obtained explicit text messages sent between the pair.

Shortly after, Bezos and his now ex-wife, MacKenzie Scott, announced their separation. By the end of that year, both parties had finalized their divorces — Bezos to MacKenzie Scott and Sánchez to Patrick Whitesell, the executive chairman of Endeavor — and the couple was making public appearances at events like the Allen & Company conference in Sun Valley and Wimbledon.

Since then, they have frequently appeared together, whether aboard Koru or on red carpets at the Vanity Fair Oscars Party and Met Gala.

The couple confirmed their engagement in May 2023.

• Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates shares three kids with his ex-wife Melinda French Gates.
• His eldest daughter is a med school graduate and his youngest a startup cofounder.
• Here's what we know about the children of one of the world's richest men.

Bill Gates' story is a quintessential example of the American entrepreneurial dream: A brilliant math whiz, Gates was 19 when he dropped out of Harvard and cofounded Microsoft with his friend, the late Paul Allen, in 1975.

Nearly 50 years later, Gates' net worth of almost $108 billion makes him one of the richest and most famous men on Earth, per Forbes. He stepped down from Microsoft's board in 2020 and has cultivated his brand of philanthropy with the Gates Foundation — a venture he formerly ran with his now ex-wife Melinda French Gates, who resigned in May. 

Even before founding one of the world's most valuable companies, Gates' life was anything but ordinary. He grew up in a well-off and well-connected family, surrounded by his parents' rarefied personal and professional network. Their circle included a Cabinet secretary and a governor of Washington, according to "Hard Drive," the 1992 biography of Gates by James Wallace and Jim Erickson. (Brock Adams, who went on to become the transportation secretary in the Carter administration, is said to have introduced Gates' parents.)

His father, William Gates Sr., was a prominent corporate lawyer in Seattle and the president of the Washington State Bar Association.

His mother, Mary Gates, came from a line of successful bankers and sat on the boards of important financial and social institutions, including the nonprofit United Way. It was there, according to her New York Times obituary, that she met the former IBM chairman John Opel — a fateful connection thought to have led to IBM enlisting Microsoft to provide an operating system in the 1980s.

"My parents were well off — my dad did well as a lawyer, took us on great trips, we had a really nice house," Gates said in the 2019 Netflix documentary "Inside Bill's Brain."

"And I've had so much luck in terms of all these opportunities."

Despite his very public life, his three children with French Gates — Jennifer, Rory, and Phoebe — have largely avoided the spotlight for most of their upbringing. 

Like their father, the three Gates children attended Seattle's elite Lakeside School, a private high school that has been recognized for excellence in STEM subjects — and that received a $40 million donation from Bill Gates in 2005 to build its financial aid fund. (Bill Gates and Paul Allen met at Lakeside and went on to build Microsoft together.)

As they've gotten older, they've stepped more into the public eye, and more details have emerged about their interests, professions, and family life. 

Gates recently said his children will get "less than 1%" of his fortune when he dies. But they may also inherit the family foundation, where most of his money will go.

Here's all we know about Bill Gates' children.

Gates and his children did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

Jennifer Gates Nassar

Jennifer Gates Nassar, who goes by Jenn, is the oldest of the Gates children at 28 years old.

A decorated equestrian, Gates Nassar started riding horses when she was six. Her father has shelled out millions of dollars to support her passion, including buying a California horse farm for $18 million and acquiring several parcels of land in Wellington, Florida, to build an equestrian facility.

In 2018, Gates Nassar received her undergraduate degree in human biology from Stanford University, where a computer science building was named for her father after he donated $6 million to the project in 1996.

She then attended the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, from which she graduated in May. She's continuing at Mt. Sinai for her residency in pediatric research. During medical school, she also completed a Master's in Public Health at Columbia University — perhaps a natural interest given her parents' extensive philanthropic activity in the space.

"Can't believe we've reached this moment, a little girl's childhood aspiration come true," she wrote on Instagram. "It's been a whirlwind of learning, exams, late nights, tears, discipline, and many moments of self-doubt, but the highs certainly outweighed the lows these past 5 years."

In October 2021, she married Egyptian equestrian Nayel Nassar. In February 2023, reports surfaced that they bought a $51 million New York City penthouse with six bedrooms and a plunge pool. The next month, they welcomed their first child, Leila, and in October, Gates Nassar gave birth to their second daughter, Mia.

"I'm over the moon for you, @jenngatesnassar and @nayelnassar—and overjoyed for our whole family," Bill Gates commented on the Instagram post announcing Mia's birth.

In a 2020 interview with the equestrian lifestyle publication Sidelines, Gates Nassar discussed growing up wealthy.

"I was born into a huge situation of privilege," she said. "I think it's about using those opportunities and learning from them to find things that I'm passionate about and hopefully make the world a little bit of a better place."

She recently posted about visiting Kenya, where she learned about childhood health and development in the country.

Rory John Gates

Rory John Gates, who is in his mid-20s, is Bill Gates and Melinda French Gates' only son and the most private of their children. He maintains private social media accounts, and his sisters and parents rarely post photos of him.

His mother did, however, write an essay about him in 2017. Titled "How I Raised a Feminist Son," she describes as a "great son and a great brother" who "inherited his parents' obsessive love of puzzles."

In 2022, he graduated from the University of Chicago, where, based on a photo posted on Facebook, he appears to have been active in moot court. At the time of his graduation, Jennifer Gates Nassar wrote that he had achieved a double major and master's degree.

Little is publicly known about what the middle Gates child has been up to since he graduated, but a Puck report from last year gave some clues, saying that he is seen as a "rich target for Democratic social-climbers, influence-peddlers, and all variety of money chasers."

Phoebe Gates

Phoebe Gates, 22, is the youngest of the Gates children.

After graduating from high school in 2021, she followed her sister to Stanford. She graduated in June after three years with a Bachelor of Science in Human Biology. Her mom, Melinda French Gates, delivered the university's commencement address.

In a story that Gates wrote for Nylon about her graduation, she documented the day, including a party she cohosted that featured speeches from her famous parents and a piggyback ride from her boyfriend Arthur Donald — the grandson of Sir Paul McCartney.

She has long shown an interest in fashion, interning at British Vogue and posting on social media from fashion weeks in Copenhagen, New York, and Paris. Sustainability is often a theme of her content, which highlights vintage and secondhand stores and celebrates designers who don't use real leather and fur.

That has culminated in her cofounding Phia, a sustainable fashion tech platform that launched in beta this fall. The site and its browser extension crawl secondhand marketplaces to find specific items in an effort to help shoppers find deals and prevent waste.

Her father told The New York Times he was glad she didn't ask him to back the startup.

"I thought, 'Oh boy, she's going to come and ask,'" Gates said. "I would have kept her on a short leash and be doing business reviews, which I would have found tricky, and I probably would have been overly nice, but wondered if it was the right thing to do. Luckily, it never happened."

In 2025, Phoebe also launched a podcast called "The Burnouts" with her former roommate and current cofounder Sofia Kianni.

Gates shares her parents' passion for public health. She's attended the UN General Assembly with her mother and spent time in Rwanda with Partners in Health, a nonprofit that has received funding from the Gates Foundation.

Like her mother, Gates often publicly discusses issues of gender equality, including in essays for Vogue and Teen Vogue, at philanthropic gatherings, and on social media, where she frequently posts about reproductive rights.

She's given thousands to Democrats and Democratic causes, including to Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Democratic Party of Montana, per data from OpenSecrets. According to Puck, she receives a "giving allowance" that makes it possible for her to cut the checks.

Perhaps the most public of the Gates children — she's got over 450,000 Instagram followers and a partnership with Tiffany & Co. — she's given glimpses into their upbringing, including strict rules around technology. The siblings were not allowed to use their phones before bed, she told Bustle, and to get around the rule, she created a cardboard decoy.

"I thought I could dupe my dad, and it worked, actually, for a couple nights," she told the outlet earlier this year. "And then my mom came home and was like, 'This is literally a piece of cardboard you're plugging in. You're using your phone in your room.' Oh, my gosh, I remember getting in trouble for that."

It hasn't always been easy being Gates's daughter. In the Netflix documentary "What's Next? The Future With Bill Gates," she said she lost friends because of a conspiracy theory suggesting her father used COVID-19 vaccines to implant microchips into recipients.

"I've even had friends cut me off because of these vaccine rumors," she said.