Pay No Attention to the Russian Oligarch Standing Behind the Wedding Party

Illustration by Matteo Giuseppe Pani / The Atlantic. Source: Contributor / Getty. September 17, 2026, 5:11 PM ET Share Save Welcome to our wedding weekend! It’s going to be a beautiful occasion, followed by an intimate gathering of family, dear friends, and one Russian oligarch nobody knows who will be handed the bill afterward. The bride will wear white, the groom will wear white, and the Russian oligarch nobody knows will wear camouflage in case someone tries to take a picture of him and ProPublica finds out . We will try to pass him off as a tropical plant, or suggest that he was doing close-up magic. In a sense, he was. That whole celebration was magic!