Taylor Swift’s wedding: Madison Square Garden, NDAs and a princess castle – The Latest

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0:10When Madison Square Garden was speculated, it was seen as absolutely unbelievable. We know that something is happening in an incredibly high-profile, visible part of New York, but we really don't know what. They do have a kind of attention to their public presentations and understand what one can do for the other. That sort of relates to the Madison Square Garden venue in that symbolically it is the union in America of entertainment, music, performance and sport. From the Guardians today in Focus, this is The Latest with me, Lucy Harth. So the closest thing that the US has to a royal wedding is happening today.

0:54the marriage of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey, 10 months after their engagement post, which got a whopping 14 million likes within the hour. I think it's now closer to 40 million. New York has been on shutdown and there have been these rumours about Madison Square Garden being the venue, which I thought was some kind of ruse. But it turns out Elle Hunt, Guardian writer who's been sleuthing every corner of the internet, as have I, about the details of this, it's not. And there There seems to have been some kind of rehearsal dinner there last night. What do we know? Well, yes, you're right. When Madison Square Garden was first rumoured to be the venue for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelsey's wedding, the response was nearly immediate and unanimous disbelief in that this is a hockey basketball arena.

1:42Somewhere that Taylor has gigged many times. Yes, exactly. And she was most recently seen sitting courtside for the Knicks games there. so there was this general sort of sense of it couldn't be there with the squeaky floors and the concession stands but it seems that that is all but confirmed now as the site of at least the wedding celebration so on Thursday night guests arrived at Madison Square Garden for what was seen as an intimate rehearsal dinner and among the celebrities we sort of saw pulling in were producer Jack Antonoff, the girls creator Lena Dunham, Taylor's longtime friends, model Gigi Hadid and Selena Gomez, and other people who are known to be in her close circle.

2:29Obviously the close circle being 100 people. The big thing that we don't know for sure right now is whether they are already married, whether they are getting married today at the larger event, or whether they will get married later. But certainly this is the occasion for marking the union of Travis and Kelsey, where, as you said, you know, it's not just a royal wedding for America. It seems to be sort of the wedding, celebrity wedding of the century for the world. And New York City seemingly on shutdown. So all the roads around Madison Square Garden have been closed. Zoran Mamdamani spoke about that earlier this week, sort of semi-confirming that there was going to be this major event happening in the city.

3:10For Taylor Swift, surely Madison Swaya Gardner is about, as a superstar like her, it's basically as close as you can get to an office space. It is, as I understand, the first place that she gigged as a teenager in 2003. But it's just a bit like not comparing myself to Taylor Swift, nor my own wedding to theirs. But it's a bit like me pitching up a tent in the Guardian office, surely. Like it's work adjacent. And what we know is that they are building, well, we don't know, but it's rumoured that they're building a princess castle within Madison Square Garden, to which my follow up question would be, why not go to an actual castle or large house?

3:50Does that sort of track with Taylor's taste, do you think? I think the comparison of Madison Square Garden to the Guardian Office is a little unfair. Lovely as they are. They do have windows, the Guardian office, unlike Madison Square Garden. Madison Square Garden, like I say, it was seen as very off-brand for Taylor. The long-rumoured wedding venue was Rhode Island, where she's off on holiday. She has a property. And that was sort of seen as the kind of tasteful, chic, but also secluded, you know, destination that she would go for her wedding. So like I say, when Madison Square Garden was speculated, it was seen as absolutely unbelievable.

4:34But now that we're kind of closer to the event and we're getting hints of what Taylor might have kind of her vision might have been. And Travis, obviously, we don't want to sideline him in this event. I'm sure his fingerprints are all over. Crucial to every decision at every step of the way. Yeah, no, I think, yeah. I mean, the thing that it's sort of shaping up to have over other venues is this incredible attention to security. You can park underground, which means that you can access without being seen. There's very few opportunities for paparazzi shots, not least because, as you say, there are no windows.

5:11and it is such a kind of neutral blank space that with enough money you can transform it into what you want it to be so really it seems like perhaps it's a more of a practical situation than anything else because as you'll recall when Taylor attended producer Antonoff's wedding last year New Jersey was overcome with Swifties just hoping for a glimpse along with media of course and it was really quite chaotic so that may have shown her that you know there's no point in taking a chance on even a remote island if you know what I mean. Yeah so this rumoured indoor castle what do we know about that because it sort of sounds like not only will it be a castle but it will also kind of be adjacent to the sort of Glastonbury pyramid stage and that it will be there'll be several performances from an unbelievable series of rumoured A-listers.

6:10This is one of the incredible things about this wedding is that we know that something is happening in an incredibly high profile visible part of New York but we really don't know what. So what we've been able to kind of piece together is from anonymous sources leaked photos reports and now these little bits we're getting around the edges of Madison Square garden. But what we have seen is tracks being unloaded of props, kind of set dressing stage materials with things labelled like Garden Party One and sort of things like kind of look like model trees. The castle report came from TMZ who were very excited about the purported castle and interestingly was followed by a piece to People magazine saying Taylor is absolutely definitely not building a castle, which suggests to me that someone was like, okay, that is too far.

7:09We're going to rebut that publicly. But the People source did say that there was going to be magical set dressing and, you know, there's a sort of fairytale scene, but they were very keen to rebut the specific castle. Yeah. And rumoured performances from Stevie Nicks, Tim McGraw, possibly Paul McCartney, possibly Ed Sheeran. The mind boggles. And the guest list is being very, very closely scrutinised. We've got a bit of a sense of who's attending based on this rehearsal dinner for her closest friends last night. But the guest list is rumoured to be about a thousand. Who do we know about who is likely to be on the list?

7:49And perhaps more importantly, who do we know has been snubbed? I think one of the interesting things about this is, you know, we think a thousand people is huge, but the capacity of Madison Square Garden is 23 ,000. So that is going to seem quite intimate. It suggests a large production crew. Yes. And I think Glastonbury is perhaps not that bad a way of thinking about it. But, you know, I don't think it's going to be a sit down dinner, if you know what I mean. Yeah. But in terms of the guest list, Taylor has always been quite public about who is her close circle. And she was the kind of pioneer of the Girl Squad, like millennial 2015 era.

8:32What a time on Instagram that was. Yes. And some of the Girl Squad founding members are among the guests being speculated about today, such as Carly Closs, who used to be her BFF, and then they had a sort of alleged falling out. At least they're never seen together. So there's a big question mark over whether she will be seen attending. The other question mark, of course, is Blake Lively, who has been in recent years Taylor Swift's sort of closest friend. Right or die. Yeah, Taylor Swift is the godmother to her children with Ryan Reynolds. Tennis McFarland very rarely promotes other people's projects that sort of, you know, would promote Deadpool, that sort of thing.

9:17Like she was really close with them, name check the kids and songs. And that relationship seems to have cooled since Blake Lively's legal battle. Yeah. So already we can see that that is sort of where the gossip tabloids are focusing their attentions on. And just before I spoke to you today, I saw a report of Blake Lively being upstate New York, attending her daughter's horse riding competition. So at least unless she intends to make a sprint to New York now, which could obviously is possible. But there seems to perhaps be a message being sent of don't expect me to shark in Manhattan later today.

9:55Just lastly, Elle, I mean, it feels like we've lived through a cycle of these absolute blockbuster celebrity weddings. We had the Jeff Bezos, Lauren Sanchez wedding, which sort of effectively bought and took over the entire city of Venice. very recently we had the the nuptials of Dua Lipa and Callum Turner who sort of brought out town square in this you know hugely elaborate three-day event that the paparazzi had sort of some access to but but the central day was was very picketed off and only released by them a few days later and now we have this Taylor-Travis extravaganza which perhaps trumps both combined is this a new phenomenon or do you think we've seen this before and and why is there this pressure for celebrities to go so big, so public, so expensive.

10:45I think with Taylor Swift, she is sort of separate to those examples you mentioned, I think, in an interesting way, partly because of the size and scale of her celebrity, which she cemented with the Eras tour. This, in a way, is sort of, I don't think it's coincidence or that they just couldn't wait to cement their love that it happens so quickly after the engagement, relatively speaking. What kind of keeps this couple together? It's not to say that they're not in love and that each other's forever match, but they do have a kind of attention to their public presentations and understand what one can do for the other.

11:26And I also think that that sort of relates to the Madison Square Garden venue in that, you know, symbolically, it is the union in America of entertainment, music, performance and sport. There is this kind of you mentioned it was a sort of all American royal wedding. This is sort of cementing her claim to pop culture as though there was any doubt at this stage. We've got media kind of, you know, using telephoto lens to get pictures of the colours of the curtains in MSG and they're a dusty pink. That's confirmed. I've seen the picture. And we've also had some rumours that she'd bought out every single calla lily in the city, 42 ,000 of them debunked by a very dogged New York press.

12:12Elle, I wish we could talk about this all day, but sadly we cannot. But we will learn more over the weekend. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you and all the best to Taylor and Travis. That's it for today. My huge Thanks again to Elle Hunt, Guardian writer. You can keep up with all her coverage of this story and more over at theguardian.com. And do listen to today's episode of our sister podcast, Politics Weekly America. The USA is 250 years old. Jonathan Friedland will be looking at why so many Americans are feeling less patriotic and why the celebrations have been hijacked by Trump. Thanks for listening to this episode of The Latest.

12:48Today in Focus will be back in your feeds as usual on Monday morning. The Latest will be back on Monday night. Have a lovely weekend. This episode was presented by me, Lucy Hoff. It was produced by Hannah Williams, Stefania Orlando and Leo Schick. The senior producer was Ryan Ramgobin.

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