Everyone’s invited to Taylor Swift’s New York rumoured wedding, even if they’re not on guest list

When New York city tabloid fixtures John F Kennedy and Carolyn Bessette tied the knot in September 1996, they opted for intimate and private.

The nuptials took place on the remote Cumberland Island, inside a tiny church that didn’t have electricity. The guest list barely scraped 50 people and until the couple released one photo from the celebrations, the world didn’t know it had happened.

At the other end of the spectrum to Cumberland Island is Madison Square Garden, one of the most famous arenas in the world, located in midtown Manhattan, accessible from all sides and beneath.

The Garden, as it’s colloquially known, is a mecca to the commerce of entertainment, having hosted everything and everyone from the likes of Elvis Presley and Beyonce to Disney on Ice and Cirque du Soleil. Last month, the New York Knicks won its first NBA Championship within its walls.

When it comes to understated elegance, the Garden isn’t that, right from the moment of its birth when the original Penn Station, a paragon of Beaux Arts architecture, was demolished to make way.

If you’re trying to keep things on the downlow, you don’t choose the Garden. It’s for when you want everyone to pay attention.

Right now, outside the Garden, trucks are lined up unloading and suppliers are bumping in for what looks to be a big event. Media and cameras are set-up out the front. Police rosters are being rejigged.

It’s either the world’s worst kept secret or the biggest fake-out: The nuptials of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce on Friday.

When the rumour that Swift and Kelce would marry at the Garden, it seemed ludicrous. Who would say “I do” inside a cavernous arena which seats 20,000 people, and better associated with beers in plastic cups than champagne flutes.

Now, it’s all but official, unless this is the most elaborate and expensive hoax ever, and the two lovebirds end up exchanging vows in some Missouri backyard while the expected hundreds if not thousands of Swifties lined up outside during a heatwave pass out disappointed.

The choice of venue and the level of spectacle has all been carefully chosen to add another chapter to the story Swift has been selling about who she is. The point is to be NOT intimate and private.

Here’s what we know.

The New York Times today published details of a memo circulated through the New York Police Department titled “Taylor Swift wedding at Madison Square Garden”. The police commissioner, Jessica Tisch, has acknowledged there is an event at the Garden on Friday night which the department is involved with.

From Thursday local time, officers from the NYPD and two transport authorities will be deployed around the Garden.

There is expected to be a rehearsal dinner that evening inside the Infosys Theatre located within the Garden for 100 invited guests.

The main ceremony is slated for Friday and the guest list for that is rumoured to number around 1000. The doors to the venue will open at 4pm for cocktails, with the wedding and reception in the arena at 5.30pm. The event is expected to wrap up by 2am.

City permits to close the adjacent streets have been applied for, which can cost up to $US66,000 a day. The application has requested the closures are in place until midday Saturday, which is July 4, the US’s national holiday.

Those gathered outside the Garden have been watching the deliveries streaming through, which have assiduously recorded the details.

Among them are boxes containing heavy cream, lobster meat, fries, onion rings, chicken, pepper, cos lettuce, milk and eggs. A Krispy Kreme truck came, unloaded and went, according to Page Six.

Other trucks have left behind equipment, including a package with a label that read “Garden party 1 (scenic)”. There was a red carpet installed on the stairs to the south entrance at one point, but then was removed soon after.

People magazine reported there was a box labelled “mirror ball” and cited an anonymous source that the venue had been “transformed”. According to Page Six, they’re building a castle inside – two large, white bannisters were seen being unloaded from a truck.

The 1000-strong guest list is still largely a mystery at this point, but bits and pieces have started to coalesce.

Some of the couple’s friends have been seen in and around New York, including Ed Sheeran, Sabrina Carpenter and Aaron Dessner, while others including Graham Norton, Suki Waterhouse, Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid and footballer George Kittle have confirmed they’ll be in attendance.

Rumoured guests have included Jack Antonoff, Zoe Kravitz, Adrien Brody, the Haim sisters, Gigi Hadid, Selena Gomez, Cara Delevingne and Stevie Nicks.

The New York Knicks’ starting line-up is said to have been invited. Swift was recently seen courtside during the championship games.

There have been contradictory reports about Blake Lively, who was a close friend of Swift’s but apparently had a falling out after the pop star was dragged into the legal action surrounding her It Ends with Us co-star.

The dress code is said to be black tie, and all attendees are mandated to cloak their phones at the door.

Nicks and Tim McGraw are rumoured to be performing, and Swift will have multiple outfit changes throughout the evening.

What’s extraordinary is that as piecemeal as all that information seems to be, nothing has officially come out of Swift’s camp.

The billionaire pop star and her publicist Tree Paine have been masters at generating headlines and social media buzz, all largely positive.

Even with the large-scale operation of shutting down Manhattan blocks for a private function during the July 4 long weekend, there haven’t been too many grumbles. Many New Yorkers have welcomed it as another boost for the city amid the fever of the Knicks winning and the World Cup games across the river in New Jersey.

Swift has made a career out of appearing accessible to her enormous and enormously devoted fandom, especially those who will be cheering on from outside. Some of them even showed up last month in Rhode Island when there had been a rumour that the chanteuse would marry there on the 13th.

Swift’s super power is in crafting a story, not just through the lyrics of her narrative-led songs, but in everything she does, whether in direct engagement or through more subtle signalling.

She is known for deploying so-called easter eggs through her work and marketing, such as the repeated use of a number or colour scheme, which her fans lap up.

She’ll often release the same track in multiple formats, which diehards collect with abandon.

For example, even for the song she wrote for Toy Story 5, Swift released it as two different vinyls and three different CDs in addition to the digital downloads.

It’s how the commercially savvy Swift has managed to amass a billion-dollar fortune.

This wedding to Kelce at Madison Square Garden is just another part of that larger narrative.

If anyone else was going to throw themselves a multi-day wedding party this lavish, and closed down parts of a city, they’d be harangued. Just ask Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez.

If anyone else was getting married at Madison Square Garden, they’d be called tacky.

Thanks to the power of Swift’s carefully curated image and the bank of support from her followers, instead it’s been framed and accepted as a big, fun party – even if you’re not invited.

But by having all these little details come out, by staging it in the middle of New York City where everyone can see what’s being trucked in and who’s arriving, it kind of feels like you are a guest.

That’s a very Swift thing, to make her fans believe they’re part of her story and her success, and don’t be surprised if she ends up releasing a new album or something similar off the back of it.

So, everyone will be watching because that’s how she wants it.