The nuptial of the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and a former news anchor Lauren Sanchez in Venice have also got into a honeymoon but with a distasteful twist in the form of an unwanted critique of their wedding invitation.
Snippet of the invite, which was acquired by the ABC News, has unleashed a torrent of mockery on the web. The six-year couple are set to tie the knot during a multi-day ceremony alleged to be blessed with an official marriage officiated on the beautiful island, San Giorgio Maggiore, on Friday, June 27.
Quite unlike the sophistication of a billionaire wedding, the design of the invitation which is a collage of butterflies, birds, feathers, and shooting stars of the pink and blue colors placed on a white base color, has been described by social media users as atrocious and ugly.
The card contained a message saying that no gifts should be brought by the guests. It said, “You are welcome to come and join us! There is one thing we early ask: no gifts.”
Rather, the invite mentioned that the couple would donate money on behalf of the guests. Gifts in your name are going to the UNESCO Venice Office to help preserve the priceless cultural heritage of this city, to CORILA which will restore the delicate lagoon habitats which defend the future of Venice, and to Venice.
The magical area has given us memorable experiences. That in likewise so doing, and in your thus heeding the invitation, Venice may always remain alike a wonder to the age institutionally incorporated and consolidated in the future as well as in the present: This was the eulogy or as the invitation termed it, the hope of the occasion.
On the one hand, the idea was seemingly decent, but on the other hand, the visual implementation lacked a lot.
X (the new Twitter) people were soon ridiculing the invite.
One of the users even jested, “Was the invitation created in Microsoft Paint?”
Still another said just this: “That invitation is awful. Money cannot buy taste or class obviously.”
Comments more critical ensued.
What a pity it is an ugly announcement/invitation. He has all the money they could have at least done something pretty and classy.”
Another user replied, saying that this invitation resembled that of an 11-year-old person.
In spite of the protest, the hype to the reputed event is soaring high. Although the wedding festivities were initially said to be held between June 24 and 26, The independent published that the real timeframe seems to be in the second half of the week instead. Italy officials have just announced that the official ceremony will take place in late June.
Several sources claim that the splashy event will last three days, with Jeff Bezos and his superyacht Koru docked in the harbour of Venice, being the centre of the festivities.
You are cordially invited to critique Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez’s wedding invitation
The bit of the wedding invitation of Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez that was leaked to the world has a lot to be unraveled. The explicable refusal of gifts, the sole initiative that the one of the wealthiest persons in the world could make; the pledge to donate to Venice office of UNESCO, the Corila research program into the Venice lagoon, and Venice International University is a proclamation of attention to a city whose people are deploring the very presence of the couple. However, maybe the most unexpected aspect of everything comes in the form of the design of invitation.
The invitation is printed on a longing italic typeface and is poorly dressed with doves, shooting stars, butterflies and the Rialto Bridge, making it seem a homemade one though not in an artisanal way. The illustrations (comprising 2 gondolas) have been exchanged with the ones that can be found in a generic image library of Microsoft Word).
In its place, the invitation by Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez is more of an afterthought, particularly seeing how many people will be attending, the threat of protesters, which already caused a change of venue at the last minute, and how much media attention the event continues to attract.
The invitation received a lot of backlash with many turning to social media to voice their frustration over the fact that it did not do it better or even stupidly hoping that the wedding would at least have a billion dollar budget. The choice is more reasonable though, when you take into consideration the more casual style that tech bros in this income set are used to.
Jeff Bezos himself can usually be found in jeans, polo shirts and sneakers but, at this occasion, he will definitely clean up his act, and, apparently, once wore shirts that had hidden snaps underneath the collar to make tie removal a breeze (Wired profile in 1999). Performance at the expense of fashion and productivity instead of glamor. Still habits are tough to kill.
However, invitations do more than simply deliver the logistical information. In the case of significant events, they would be the initial peep of what the visitors should anticipate about the day.
As part of the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camila in 2023 an elaborate border of garden settings and folklore images and coats of arms of the Monarch are painted in watercolour and gouache on silk by British artist Andrew Jamieson. Because of the high level of detail, it is being painted by hand.
The design was then re-designed and printed more than 2,000 times using recycled card with gold foil finishing. Equally, Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, saw every wedding invite in 2018 designed on a 1930s machine. The couple even went to the extent of American on English card; they used American ink depicting their transatlantic solidarity.
Even fashion designers have been using the strength of the memorable invite as extensions of their world-building activities as of old. Then on Friday when high-powered guests flee to Seattle to attend the Bezos wedding (June 26-28), a stylish crowd of fashionistas will be in Paris to fete another highly-anticipated occurrence:
The appointment of a new chief designer at Dior. Jonathan Anderson, who is certified to be a hype-maker and story handler on-the-runway, also posted his own invitations this week. Diners were presented with porcelain plates with three baby pink eggs stuck to their surfaces and with the word Dior written on the bottom.
As with all good teasers, the invitation leaves more questions than answers, although it also serves as a preface of what we want to see in the catwalk. Subversion, something a half strange, old craft made mental.
The fact that Anderson has taken advantage of such a need of business is, of course, nothing new to designers. In 2023, Alaia delivered seats to viewers in the form of a collapsible stool which they are to transport to the venue where the show displaces.
The previous year, Balenciaga mailed out the actual objects of the future 2022: iPhone 6Ss with names of the guest and the information about the show embossed on the gadget (and frequently broken to pieces). More recently, Gucci created a limited edition of the iconic Enzo Mari, Italian-designer calendar, called “Timor”, and mailed it to guests to attend its showing, at the Milan Fashion Week.
Yet none the less there are designers who still like the ephemeral. In 2018 Jacquemus mailed out its invites by hand-writing them and then wiring them in a cotton towel and a loaf of freshly baked bread.
Sentimental-minded people take any invite as a remembrance of the occasion, but the good ones, like the ones created by high-fashionism brands, may turn into collectibles. (Or be auctioned off on eBay at the thousands).
As Anderson made her Dior debut and Amazon founder was getting hitched, those who were exhausted by the potential event overload, (Kim Kardashian, Anna Wintor, maybe?) were forced to make a difficult choice. It was perhaps the invitation which clinched.
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