Celebrity weddings are always extravagant, filled with famous guests, jaw-dropping decorations, and of course, sky-high budgets. But what sets Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’s wedding apart from your typical high-profile event is the jaw-dropping number of private jets involved.
His upcoming wedding to Lauren Sanchez has already sparked backlash—not only for its enormous budget, but also because protesters have taken issue with some of the arrangements.
Bezos and Sanchez got engaged back in May 2023, and according to recent reports, they’re finally tying the knot this week.
The lavish ceremony is reportedly taking place in Venice, Italy, on June 27. Big names like Katy Perry, Oprah Winfrey, Mick Jagger, and Ivanka Trump are expected to be on the guest list.
More recent estimates from Mail Online suggest the total spending might actually be somewhere between $15 million and $20 million—which is still a mind-blowing amount for a wedding.
To say it’s a big budget would be an understatement.
Unlike most weddings where guests either drive or take commercial flights, Bezos’s guests are expected to arrive in their own private aircraft from different parts of the world. According to recent estimates, these jets combined will release as much carbon dioxide as 27,300 cars do in a single day.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency says a standard passenger car releases about 4.6 metric tons or 4600 kilograms of CO2 each year. If you crunch the numbers, the daily amount starts to look pretty alarming.
When you divide 4600 kg by the 365 days in a year, you get roughly 12.6 kilograms of emissions per car each day.
Italian news outlet Affaritaliani reports that about 96 private jets are expected to touch down in Venice for this three-day celebration.
So, using that number, if one private flight creates 3.6 tonnes of CO2 and 96 jets are heading to Venice for the wedding, we’re looking at a total of 354 tonnes or 345,000 kilograms of CO2 emissions just from arrivals.
Still with me? Good, because this part’s pretty straightforward.
Take that 345,000 kg from the jets and divide it by 12.6 kg per car. The result is 27,300 cars.
And keep in mind—that number only covers the trips coming in. We haven’t even started to calculate the emissions for the return flights yet…