Andy El Bayeh, the Bondi-based CEO of culture agency Example, has married Raquelle Saba, the podcaster known online as Red Shiraz, in a lavish wedding on Lebanon's Mediterranean coast. Scores of guests travelled to Beirut for the celebrations over the weekend as the couple marked their nuptials in style.
But amid the feasting, dancing and drinking, the opulent affair has been overshadowed by an apparent social rift closer to home. Mel Coates, the former best friend of El Bayeh's first wife, wealthy Melbourne socialite Harriet Williams, has been publicly showing her support for the newlyweds, raising eyebrows among Sydney's Eastern Suburbs set.
Coates has been liking Saba's pre-wedding Instagram posts, including a photograph of the podcaster posing in a white dress two weeks before the wedding. "Practicing wearing white," Saba captioned the image.
According to insiders, Coates ended her friendship with Williams not long after Williams' split from El Bayeh in 2024, and quickly aligned herself with her former best friend's ex-husband and, later, his new wife.
Coates also liked the couple's engagement announcement on January 7, leaving a string of love-heart emojis in the comments. Her social media activity has attracted attention given her reported two-decade friendship with Williams. Tellingly, the former best friends no longer follow each other on Instagram.
A lavish wedding on the Lebanese coast
El Bayeh and Saba, who have been dating for just over a year, married during a seaside ceremony in Beirut in front of friends and family. The festivities opened with a pre-wedding dinner party, with guests treated to a poolside feast on the grounds of an exquisite 1800s monastery.
Saba, who hosts the sex and dating podcast Sugar and Spice, wore a corset-style lace gown with a high-low fishtail hemline, designed by Melbourne designer Lillian Khallouf. She wore her long hair out in voluminous mermaid waves and accessorised with a diamond tennis necklace. El Bayeh, for his part, looked suave in a beige suit jacket, black button-down shirt and cream trousers.
A day later, the couple exchanged vows at an opulent church before spending the rest of the day dancing and feasting. Saba changed into an ivory strapless Lillian Khallouf gown with heavy lace detailing and a removable skirt, again wearing her hair out and finishing the look with a diamond necklace, lace veil and white bouquet. El Bayeh wore a white suit jacket, white button-down shirt, black trousers and a white bow-tie.
The happy couple are reported to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the destination wedding.
El Bayeh's first marriage, to Harriet Williams
El Bayeh was once considered one of the most eligible men in Sydney after splitting from Williams, a kinesiologist, in 2024 following two years of marriage. The popular Eastern Suburbs couple had married in a fairytale $1 million wedding in March 2022, after four years of dating.
The couple are said to have abruptly ended their six-year relationship during a European holiday with other couples. Sources close to the pair confirmed the separation to the Daily Telegraph, with the news reportedly shocking Sydney's social set.
The pair had been posting loved-up images together as they travelled around Greece and Italy, before unfollowing each other on Instagram amid reports of the sudden break-up.
Moving on with Raquelle Saba
In June 2025, El Bayeh confirmed he was off the market again when he was pictured kissing Saba in an Instagram post shared by Wittner Shoes heiress Lucy Rosenberg. The couple looked thoroughly loved-up again in August, when El Bayeh wished Saba a happy birthday with a picture of the pair locked in an intimate embrace, El Bayeh shirtless as Saba flaunted her figure in a brown bikini.
"Happy Birthday, Hayati," he wrote in the caption. Hayati translates to "my life" in Lebanese Arabic; El Bayeh is Lebanese-Australian.
