The Bezos-Sanchez wedding party proves it – the age of vulgarity is upon us
One should never be cynical about love, but it is impossible to not be a little bit cynical about the nuptials of Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos and his recently acquired bride, former television host Lauren Sanchez.
The happy couple this week took over Venice for their wedding festival, which commenced with a foam party aboard the $500 million Bezos mega-yacht, moored in view of paparazzi off the coast of Croatia.
For the uninitiated, a pre-wedding foam party seems to be a yacht-based, poolside romp in which the bride and groom-to-be frolic in their swimwear, covered by soapy bubbles that have presumably been prepped by one of the many invisible workers who have toiled to make this $50 million special day come true.
Just as the working-poor labour force that powers Amazon has invisibly toiled to make Bezos one of the world's richest men (currently fourth-richest, as per the Forbes 'Real Time Billionaires List).
We know about the foam party – from which the couple was helicoptered to Venice – because it was abundantly photographed. Like the Zen koan about the tree falling in the forest, there is zero point in a billionaire wedding unless it is telegraphed widely across the world in exquisite detail: the guest list (which included Oprah Winfrey, Katy Perry, Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, Kim Kardashian and sundry other Kardashi), the rolling schedule of parties, the flight logs of the 90-odd private jets expected to land at local airports, the price tags, and the dresses, the dresses (for the bride did not have just one).
The publicity is the point.
The transparent vulgarity is even more the point.
As reported in New York magazine, 'Sanchez, in some respects, represents the aesthetic and moral pinnacle of the Mar-a-Lago era.'
It was not so long ago that stealth-wealth was in vogue, and that so-called quiet luxury was aspirational. But the re-election of Donald Trump, and the slavish compliance the tech-bro oligarchs immediately bestowed on his administration (Sanchez managed to upstage the president by wearing a cleavage-driven inauguration outfit that Vogue noted 'forgoes inauguration style codes'), has changed all that.
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