Venus Williams is a married lady! Queen Vee married her Italian king back in September, and they’re only confirming everything now, via a beautiful Vogue spread and intimate story. Venus is really into fashion, and she waited to get married until she was 45 years old. Of course she was going to make her wedding into a week-long affair with about a dozen different incredible looks. What surprised me most of all is that Venus was game to talk about everything with Vogue – Venus has always been more private than Serena, and it’s shocking that Venus would even allow Vogue to print all of this! The wedding piece is beautiful though, you really get a sense of how Andrea Preti and Venus just knew right from the start. He fell head over heels almost instantly! You can read the full Vogue piece here. Some highlights:
They met during Milan Fashion Week in 2024: “We met at the Gucci show. I was in Lake Como on a sisters’ trip when I got an invite at the last minute and decided to go on a whim, and Andrea was tired. Neither of us was planning on being there.” After the show, the brand’s former creative director Sabato De Sarno arranged an aperitivo with a group of VIPs upstairs at the venue. “I saw V and wanted to introduce myself,” says Andrea. “She was on the sofa with her friends and family. I told her, ‘You’re so beautiful,’ and then she started speaking with me in Italian. We had a little talk, and I asked if she wanted a drink. I went to the bar to get something, and her sister Lyn came to me and said, ‘Do you mind if we start a WhatsApp conversation? I think my sister likes you.’”
Venus isn’t about secrets anymore: “I’m beyond the phase of sneaking around,” she says, noting that after spending six years single, she was looking for something simple and straightforward. Andrea joined the group and quickly acclimated. “It’s not easy to sit around the table with powerful women,” Venus says. “It was all OGs—Isha, Lyn, my mom, me. He came, and he held his own.” Later that week, Venus was hosting the Serpentine gala in Kensington Gardens, and she invited Andrea to join her. “We wanted to be discreet at the time, but he really took care of me,” Venus says. “After our dates in London, I just knew I was going to marry him. People always say they just know, and I just knew.”
The engagement: They got engaged on January 31, 2025, in Tuscany. “Andrea and I love to take little trips, and we went to a wonderful place with thermal waters,” she remembers. After a day of floating in saltwater pools and couples massages, they were having dinner on the patio when Andrea suggested they wish on a star. “He asked, ‘Do you want to hear my wish?’” Venus recalls. “I said, ‘Yes, great!’ And when I turned around, he had the ring in his pocket. He said, ‘Do you want to marry me?’ And I couldn’t stop jumping up and down and laughing and smiling because that’s what I do when I win big matches. I was thinking to myself, Yes, yes, yes!”
Multiple weddings: Their first wedding was on September 18 in Ischia, Italy. “We had this dream to do our wedding in Italy,” Venus explains. “But we didn’t have enough time to do the paperwork—because I’m a foreigner, it can take about eight months. So we decided to have a second wedding.” This second wedding, held in Palm Beach, focused more on Venus’s Florida roots. Planned by Jennifer Zabinski of JZ Events, who also organized her sister Serena’s 2017 wedding, the week of events started a full six days before the ceremony and featured a jam-packed itinerary—along with lots of windy weather. “They always say weddings go so fast, and they do,” Venus says. “We started on Monday. Serena gave us this gift of a beautiful yacht, and she arranged all the food, everything. We had 10 to 12 of our closest family and friends who were in town on the boat, and we were singing, dancing, gossiping, and just enjoying each other.”
After a week of fun, they had a courthouse wedding: On Friday, the couple woke up at 4 a.m. for their courthouse wedding and arrived at 6:45 a.m. so they could have it entirely to themselves. “I can’t describe how beautiful, calm, sacred, exciting, and exalting it was,” Venus says. “It was just a dream.” The dress she wore to the courthouse was by Morilee New York. “I asked for one dress,” Venus remembers. “They made 10 dresses, all custom. The dress I ended up wearing was just divine. I also had an outfit to wear when we left so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself. It was a classic short skirt and top, and I had the perfect headpiece for it. Then we had breakfast afterward, and our day got started.”
The other Palm Beach wedding: On the morning of the wedding, Venus woke up at 8:30 a.m.—late by her standards, she notes—and started getting ready. “I got the most amazing nails by Gina Edwards, and I wore the most incredible dress by Georges Hobeika,” Venus says. “I wanted to wear a dress that I thought Andrea would love and that was magical and perfect for a Florida wedding.”
At one point in the piece, Venus says that she froze her eggs years ago, which makes me wonder if she and Andrea plan to have children. Anyway, it’s clear from every part of this that Andrea is completely enchanted by Venus and she adores him. She found “the one.” And he did too! It’s amazing to see, and it’s cool to see them sort of effortlessly melding their lives together. Venus even speaks Italian! She walked down the aisle to a song which was important to his nonna! He asked her to say some of her vows in Italian! Amazing.
Photos courtesy of Venus’s IG and Vogue’s IG.
I. Hope it works out.. She’s beautiful! All the 30 plus year olds I know who may want kids have frozen eggs. No brainier.
All the best Venus and her new husband. I’m going to guess that next year is going to be her last year on tour.
What a great situation, everyone looks happy and fabulous. Wonderfully happy story all around.
So who is Andrea Preti? Is that a name I should know?
I was fortunate to meet Venus a few years ago at an event & got a picture too. She was open & answered all questions, and was eager to start playing tennis with her niece! Very gracious, we all got pics with her.
Article says he’s an actor/producer/model, but now he’s a tennis WAG.
I hope she got a good prenup and I hope she never needs to use it.
Is he Shia LaBeouf?
Oh man, now I can’t unsee it.
I see more Diego Luna. Not exact, but closer than Shia.
One of the guys on the tennis court pic resembles Stanley Tucci.
He co-owns a restaurant as well per news reports.
Venus looks gorgeous!!! I love all the outfits. Wishing them all the best for their lives together. 🥂
All the wedding ensembles are amazing & different. I suspect the square-neck long sleeved gown paired w/ a lace mantilla was for their Italian church ceremony. Jumping over to Vogue to see.
I’m so happy for this news & this gorgeous photo scroll. Venus is a sentimental favorite for me. Her 2006 op-ed in the Times of London for equal pay was a masterclass in refuting the numerous arguments that women didn’t deserve equal pay on the circuit. (& I think she won Wimbledon right/shortly after it was enacted) I recommend that article often to young women for ideas on how to handle their own salary negotiations.
Bravo! That op-ed was masterful. The current crop of players (even from different sports and other industries) owe Venus a nod for the groundwork she laid, from her at-the-time record breaking Reebok contract ($40M, highest for a female athlete then) to the Wimbledon equal pay bid.
Congrats!
I wish the best for both of them, and good on them for announcing it on their terms
Venus looks wonderful! Great that she seems to have finally found her person.
She sounds happy and this was obviously what they wanted but a five day wedding is insane. I can’t imagine having to entertain people for that much time. They have to be TIRED.
I love this for them both!
What a beautiful couple
My lifelong fave looked AMAZING and SO Happy!! I’m ecstatic for her. Yes, Venus has always been the quiet one of the sisters. But quiet doesn’t mean she can be taken advantage of in any way. She’s the one who stood up to the Wimbledon fogies about equal prize money and was on the players council for years.
Plus, like lots of relatives who are the protectors, she’s always been the silent assassin type. Someone on social media posted a clip from a doubles press conference where she and Serena had just won but Serena had lost earlier to Roberta Vinci in her singles semifinal. The reporter kept interrupting her to talk about Serena’s singles match instead of the doubles match they’d just won and at one time said something snarky like I wasn’t talking to you. And very calmly Venus asked him if he getting was getting agressive with her? And it was heavily implied that she could either wait outside to beat his ass later or she could get him banned from any further press, but it was totally up to him. She’s no pushover.
I’m sure there’s a prenup and their other sister Isha is a lawyer, plus YEARS ago on Oprah, she told the sisters to manage their money and keep an eye on their finances. And they have. When Serena married Alexis Ohanian, she had ten times his net worth. He’s done better since their marriage but Im not worried about Andrea running off with Venus’s money. She has her Happy Viking protein powder, Asutra, Eleven by Venus (on hiatus), brand deal with Lacoste and other endorsements. She’s good.
Love can make people do stupid things, but Williams women are very savvy, and even if Venus was experiencing temporary fiscal insanity, she has good people in her life who I’m sure would talk sense into her about a prenup. That’s just how things are done among the very wealthy. But they seem very happy and hopefully this is the real thing.
Alexis is one of the founders of Reddit. He is also strong in venture capital. He is said to be worth $150 million. Serena was/is very rich, but not 10 times that rich. They have always seemed like an adorable couple.
When Serena married Alexis in 2017, she was worth around $200M, which was significantly more than the apron. $14-15M he was worth then, Reddit co-founder sale notwithstanding. Today, they’re both worth more and he’s closer to her net worth, but she started out richer than him.
Indeed, I didn’t know Alexis got only $10 million when he sold Reddit. What does “the apron” mean?
Sorry, it’s a typo I didn’t notice. I meant Approximately. So again, Alexis was not richer than Serena when they married in 2017 even though he might be now. She earned around $80M just in prize money and her name is on a. building at Nike headquarters. Serena and Venus are minority owners in a few sports ventures (NFL, WNBA, Women’s soccer) and Serena has her Serena Ventures company.
All that to say, they’re all rich 🙂
Aw. Congrats to Venus. Beautiful.
Congrats to the happy couple and YAY to Venus for winning her tennis match. Double wins for Venus!
Her wedding looks were gorgeous.
My word! Every single outfit was so beautiful! Venus just looked absolutely gorgeous & so very happy! Congrats to the couple! I think her short skirt & blouse outfit for leaving the courthouse was my favorite; but not draw attention? Venus! You’re Venus Williams! Of course people will notice you!