Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce wedding celebration expected at Madison Square Garden this week, sources say

The highly anticipated wedding celebration for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is expected to take place at Madison Square Garden this week, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN Tuesday. The sources described plans for two events at the iconic arena in midtown Manhattan. The first event, described as a “rehearsal,” is scheduled for 6 p.m. Thursday and is expected to host about 100 guests. A larger wedding celebration planned for Friday will include what the sources described as a “cocktail party” starting in the late afternoon. The event is expected to continue through 4 a.m. Saturday, the sources said. About 1,000 guests are expected to attend. Swift’s wedding to the Kansas City Chiefs tight end has fueled intense speculation and media coverage. The power couple started dating in 2023 and announced their engagement in August through joint Instagram posts. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani hinted at the celebration at a Tuesday news conference ahead of a historic heat wave set to hit the city. “If you happen to be getting married at MSG, you will be staying inside and staying cool, and I think it’s a good example to set for the city at large,” he said. The highly anticipated wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce is expected to take place at New York's Madison Square Garden this week, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN on Tuesday.The celebrity couple announced their engagement last year with an Instagram caption reading, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”Their relationship began in 2023, not long after Kelce attended a Swift concert and tried to give her a friendship bracelet with his phone number on it. By September of that year, the two were a couple, with Swift attending a Kansas City Chiefs football game to support Kelce.The relationship has since become the stuff of a rom-com, with scenes of the couple sharing a kiss on the field after the Chiefs won the 2024 Super Bowl and Kelce making a surprise appearance on stage during a Swift Eras Tour concert in London.“When you say a relationship is public, that means I’m going to see him do what he loves, we’re showing up for each other, other people are there and we don’t care,” Swift told Time magazine. “We’re just proud of each other.” The celebration will come just ahead of the Fourth of July weekend, which marks the nation’s 250th birthday. And it comes as the city has also seen an influx of tourists for the World Cup – many of whom are passing through Penn Station, the huge transit hub beneath the Garden, for matches at MetLife Stadium in the Meadowlands. A match is scheduled in New Jersey on Sunday. Madison Square Garden, where Swift has performed eight times in her 20-year career, has struck some as an unusual wedding venue. The arena’s drab grey interiors don’t exactly paint a picture of romance. But it’s an almost impenetrable, secure location – a quality which Swift, whose fans follow her every move, might appreciate. The arena itself has a capacity of 19,500 for private events, according to its website. Swift would not be the first star to tie the knot there: Funk legend Sly Stone wed actress Kathy Silva at the Garden in 1974, and in 1980 a mass wedding of 4,000 parishioners of the Korean Unification Church took place at the venue. MSG is also where, just weeks ago, the New York Knicks faced off against the San Antonio Spurs – though the decisive fifth game that clinched the team’s first NBA championship in more than half a century took place in San Antonio. Swift attended Game 4 at MSG in a “Stevie Knicks” T-shirt. Swift’s fans and staff who work at and near the Garden have expressed disbelief that Swift would really get married there, even as a trail of clues pointing to a blockbuster wedding at the arena have slowly accumulated. A permit was requested to hold an event in the vicinity of Madison Square Garden by an event company that is known to plan weddings, multiple city and law enforcement sources previously said. Taylor Swift is one of the most successful recording artists of all time, earning legions of loyal fans known as "Swifties."She launched her country music career at age 16, and her self-titled debut album came out in 2006. Her 2014 album, "1989," was her first purely pop album. Known for her songwriting, she took on a folk-rock sound on her 2020 albums "Folklore" and "Evermore."Swift has broken a number of records throughout her career. In 2024, she became the first woman to win the album of the year Grammy four times. She was also the first woman to ever score three new No. 1 albums in less than a year. The permit would allow streets around Madison Square Garden to close from Thursday to Saturday for a planned “event,” a city official said. A source familiar with invitations that went out earlier this spring told CNN that wedding guests were told the event would take place in New York City on July 3. This story has been updated with additional information.