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As Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez cogwheel up for their wedding festivities successful Venice, Italy, much and much Venetian citizens proceed to dependable their frustrations implicit the lawsuit that could perchance airs a menace to a metropolis that is already impacted by wide tourism.
However, contempt the ongoing backlash, the couple's wedding planners told Fox News Digital that Bezos and Sanchez specifically instructed them to minimize the disruptions to the champion of their quality retired of respect to the locals.
"As lawsuit organizers who person been moving successful Venice for implicit 24 years, we consciousness obliged to acceptable the grounds consecutive fixed the misinformation, untruths and misunderstandings circulating astir the Bezos wedding," the squad astatine Lanza & Baucina Limited said successful a statement. "From the outset, instructions from our lawsuit and our ain guiding principles were abundantly clear: the minimizing of immoderate disruption to the city, the respect for its residents and institutions and the overwhelming employment of locals successful the crafting of the events."
LAUREN SANCHEZ, JEFF BEZOS FACE LOCAL RESISTANCE AS VENICE CITIZENS PROTEST WEDDING PLANS
Amid protests against their wedding successful Venice, Italy, Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez person instructed their wedding planners to support disruptions to a minimum retired of respect to the locals. (Getty Images)
"Rumors of ‘taking over’ the metropolis are wholly mendacious and diametrically opposed to our goals and to reality," the connection continued. "No exaggerated quantity of h2o taxis oregon gondolas person ever been booked, the fig of taxis reserved being proportionate for the fig of guests. Before the caller quality of protests arose, we had worked for determination to beryllium minimal antagonistic interaction oregon disruption to the lives of Venetians and the city’s visitors."
"We person ever acknowledged the wider statement and captious issues surrounding the city’s future, and from the outset our lawsuit has been honored to enactment the metropolis and its all-important lagoon done non-profit organizations and associated projects," the connection concluded.
Though astir of the details surrounding the wedding are unknown, 1 Venice national said, "we person our moles," per The New York Times.
Venetians person been voicing their frustrations implicit the wedding implicit the past mates of weeks. (ANDREA PATTARO/AFP via Getty Images))
Federica Toninello, a protestation organizer, said that 1 of the venues could beryllium The Misericordia, a famed lawsuit hall.
"Bezos volition ne'er get to the Misericordia," she said during a protest. "We volition enactment the streets with our bodies, artifact the canals with lifesavers, dinghies and our boats."
"We person to artifact Bezos, we person to artifact this thought of this metropolis arsenic a tourist haven that has driven up lodging costs truthful that astir mean Venetians tin nary longer spend to unrecorded here," she said, according to the NYT.
The couple, seen present with bully friends Katy Perry and Orlando Bloom, right, successful 2023, program to necktie the knot successful Venice, Italy, this month. (Photo: Grgo Jelavic/PIXSELL/DeFodi Images News/Getty Images)
Despite the backlash, Mayor Luigi Brugnaro told The Associated Press that the metropolis is "very proud."
"We are precise proud," Brugnaro said. "I don’t cognize if I volition person clip [to conscionable Bezos and Sánchez], oregon if helium will, to conscionable and shingle hands, but it’s an grant that they chose Venice. Venice erstwhile again reveals itself to beryllium a planetary stage."
MYSTERY COUPLE MISTAKEN FOR JEFF BEZOS AND LAUREN SÁNCHEZ AT CANNES
According to NBC, Venice - location to astir 50,000 radical - receives astir 20 cardinal visitors yearly, mostly day-trippers from cruise ships oregon different cities.
Officials told NBC that astir 30 of the 280 h2o taxis person been reserved for the wedding festivities, and lone 3 oregon 4 hotels volition beryllium utilized for the event.
The mates got engaged successful 2023. (Photo by Craig T Fruchtman/Getty Images)
"The metropolis is afloat accustomed to hosting high-profile events of this quality and scale, including different personage weddings, planetary summits specified arsenic the G7 and G20, arsenic good arsenic accepted events similar the Festa del Redentore and the Venice Biennale," metropolis hallway officials said successful a connection to NBC.
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"The celebrations, attended by 250 guests, volition blend into the regular bushed of a metropolis that, with dignity and respect, welcomes thousands of visitors from astir the satellite portion safeguarding the prime of beingness for its residents, workers, and students."
The Bezos-Sánchez wedding is reportedly being held this weekend. There is expected to beryllium a star-studded impermanent list, with friends of the mates making appearances. Leonardo DiCaprio, Orlando Bloom, Ivanka Trump and Oprah Winfrey are said to beryllium attending, per Page Six.
Fox News Digital's Emily Trainham contributed to this post.
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