The wedding of Jeff Bezos, the world’s second-richest man, to Lauren Sanchez takes place in June in Venice and, at last, details of the nuptials are starting to leak out.

The wedding planners are rumoured to be Lanza & Baucina, the crack team who orchestrated the nuptials of George and Amal Clooney as well as the fashion billionaire François-Henri Pinault’s wedding to Salma Hayek. All the big hotels are booked out for the event (we can’t call it the Big Day any more because, one thing we know for sure, this wedding will involve multiple events over several days) plus a fleet of water taxis costing £250,000. Bezos’s superyacht will be anchored in the lagoon and will inevitably play a part. Possibly as the venue for a ring blessing. I made that bit up but someone’s making this stuff up and it’s not rocket science: the brief is bigger, longer, more lavish with more elements … and then double it.

We might boggle at the scale of the Bezos wedding plans but the truth is we’re a lot less amazed than we would have been a few years ago, before weddings became staggering endurance events for which the guests must scrimp and save and plan and take a week off work.

Even for we Normals there will be a rehearsal dinner the night before in Porto (they’re all happening abroad). A brunch the day after. On the actual day (the middle one, the one when they make the vows) there could be a live band; there might be fireworks or fire-eaters or pink swans and a fake Fab Four. Think big is the message to brides and grooms — think Bezos — and forget about the cost, both financial and in terms of the inconvenience and stress caused to your friends. Go Bezos, Anyway! It’s Your Special Day.

If this sounds like the moaning of an old goat with no romance in her heart I had a fairly silly summer wedding myself, only 19 years ago, involving a church ceremony followed by prosecco and egg sandwiches and a knees-up in the evening. Quite a slog for all involved, I’m aware. But, please note, it only took a day out of our guests’ lives. Half a day if you take into account that the service started at 3pm. Imagine that! And on UK soil. Unthinkable now.

Talk to the millennials if you think this is boomer ranting. They’re all exhausted and broke and fed-up because, by the way, none of this is guaranteed fun by any means.

The last wedding I went to we were gridlocked in between the receiving line and the first drink while the photographer got the first of many carefully staged shots of the bride and groom; bride and bridesmaids; couple and family; couple being spontaneous. Where Are All These Pictures Going? You can’t reasonably display more than a couple of photographs of your wedding. Maybe these days all the maids of honour (double the number) get a bound book of photo memories? Who knows. It doesn’t make for a free-flowing social occasion is all I’m saying. And then you have the speeches.

You may remember this traditionally involved the best man letting everyone down with some boorish stories and the inevitable knob joke; the friend of the bride was inaudible, nervous and always lost his place and their combined efforts took 12 minutes tops — even if it felt like an hour.

Now you can expect two best man speeches, often three (uni friend and colleague and new cool friend with fun anecdotes) and all of it is a massive Love You Man fest with hugging and tears and shout-outs to parents and friends for being amazing and supportive. I haven’t been to rehab, but it does feel not unlike some kind of back-from-the-brink celebration. Then there’s probably a First Dance, rehearsed, with an outfit change. The groom will do some kind of musical turn. The bride’s sister will sing. The Bezos wedding is going to be staggeringly over the top but it won’t seem absurd any more. There’ll be a lot of fiancées taking notes.

Have Victoria Beckham and her daughter-in-law, Nicola Peltz, fallen out? Are they signalling malice to each other by, for example, Victoria not posting congratulations on social media on the occasion of her son Brooklyn’s third wedding anniversary a fortnight ago? Or, by Brooklyn and Nicola not publicly acknowledging Victoria’s birthday last week?

This is the question many have been asking (these people live out their lives on Instagram — nothing they post or do not post happens without careful consideration) and then Victoria wore a corsety, midriff-revealing top and matching trousers, identical to an outfit by her own label that Nicola has worn, albeit a year ago.

Ooooh. Mother-in-law wears same outfit as daughter-in-law on the occasion of her 51st birthday. Coincidence or a dig? Competitive needling or just repurposing a two-piece from her 2024 collection because why not, and David likes it? Honestly, who knows. But should VB be wanting to wind up NP for any reason this would be an excellent way to do it. Textbook competitive dressing.

As any woman will tell you there are few things more galling than another woman showing up in the same outfit as you and then looking arguably better. If that woman happens to be a couple of decades older than you (there are 21 years between Beckham and Peltz), and on top of that she’s your mother-in-law, that’s not going to help at all. Pretty sure there’s nothing in this, by the way, but it’s one for Posh to keep up her sleeve in case she feels like causing trouble.