How much will the Bezos–Sánchez wedding cost?

When Janet and I married in 1980, we exchanged vows in our church’s sanctuary and held our reception in the adjacent Fellowship Hall. Apart from the invitations, some bridesmaids’ dresses, and a few rented tuxedoes, I don’t remember the event costing more than the price of two cakes and related refreshments.

Apparently, there are other ways to get married.

Consider the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez this weekend in Venice. The event is estimated to cost between $46.5 million and $55.6 million. About ninety private jets are expected to arrive for the event; organizers have booked about thirty water taxis.

At this writing, numerous celebrities have already been spotted arriving for the wedding, including President Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner. Tom Brady, Khloe Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, and Oprah Winfrey have also been seen arriving in Venice.

They may be surprised to learn that, according to multiple sources, the couple is already married. They have not registered to be married in Venice. Reportedly, this is because they were legally married ahead of the lavish ceremony and have signed a “huge prenup.” They have been engaged since 2023 and have apparently been living together for years.

How many weddings are held in churches today?

God invented marriage. Because he is relational by nature, one God in three persons, and because he made us in his image (Genesis 1:27), we are relational as well. Accordingly, he said of Adam when he created him, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). The Lord therefore created Eve as a result and “brought her” to Adam (v. 22).

The text comments: “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (v. 24).

Given the religious origin and nature of marriage, there was a day when the large majority of weddings were religious services held at a religious location with a religious leader presiding.

That was then, this is now.

Only 30 percent of Americans who were married within the past decade report having their ceremony in a religious location officiated by a religious leader. We should not be surprised, since the number of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated has increased nearly sixfold over the last three decades. Only 52 percent of marriages in America today are among couples who belong to the same religious tradition.

How is this working for us?

“A car is made to run on gasoline”

According to the CDC, there are 230 marriages every hour in the US, but 86 divorces in that same hour. Estimates say 41 percent of first marriages will end in divorce, 60 percent of second marriages, and 73 percent of third marriages end in divorce. The average lifespan of a first marriage before divorce is eight years.

This is not to disparage those who have experienced the pain of divorce. I have family members who know personally how difficult this can be. Some counselors call divorce a “living death.”

Rather, my point is that when we use anything in ways it was not invented to be used, we typically do not use it well. And marriage was invented to be a three-person relationship: a man, a woman, and the God who made them.

CS Lewis observed:

God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on gasoline, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on himself. He himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

A plaque our family treasures

Lewis’s point applies to every one of us and every relationship in which we find ourselves. We are better employers and employees when we depend on God to guide and empower our work. We are better parents, children, and friends when we are led by his word and will.

And we are better husbands and wives when we submit our marriages every day to his Spirit, trusting him to be the “fuel” we “burn” (Ephesians 5:18). This fact applies to our marital relationships from the time we meet until the moment we are parted in this life.

When I asked Janet’s parents for permission to marry their daughter, her father told me something I’ve never forgotten: “Marriage is work, and that work only begins with the wedding. Every day,” he said, “we need to work at being the best we can be for each other.” He and my mother-in-law modeled what they taught, doing life together for many decades in ways the rest of us sought to emulate.

But as he would add, the key to their work was not in themselves.

When I visited their home the first time, I noticed a plaque on the wall of their dining room affixed so everyone entering the house could see it. It proclaimed the biblical text, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

That plaque moved from their home in Houston to the home they built in Arkansas and then to their homes back in Texas. It is now displayed in my mother-in-law’s room where she lives. If the Lord calls her home before he returns, it will move to our house.

For the sake of our marriages, families, and souls, I know of no better way to start every day than to make its words our commitment again today.

Do you?