Brad Paisley says Swift and Kelce wedding kept guests guessing
The country star told the AP that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s Madison Square Garden wedding was secretive but surprisingly low-key.
By Poppy Nakagawa · Culture Writer
3 min read
Brad Paisley says guests at Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding had to say yes before they knew exactly where they were going.
The country star, who attended the couple’s ceremony with his wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, described the run-up in a recent Associated Press interview as a playful “cat-and-mouse” process, with invitees given only partial information at first.
Rolling Stone reported that Swift and Kelce were married earlier this month at Madison Square Garden in midtown Manhattan. The arena can hold 20,000 people, but Paisley told the AP the event did not feel flashy to him.
“I took this personally when I got the invite, because in the invite, it said, ‘If you’re getting this, you mean a lot to us,’” Paisley told the AP. He said the couple told guests “roughly” where the wedding would be, but not the specific building, then offered more details after guests committed.
Paisley said he asked his wife if she wanted to go, and her answer was immediate: “Absolutely. We’ve gotta be there.” He told the AP they sent back a yes.
A big venue, a guarded guest list
Despite the size of the setting, Paisley said the wedding struck him as unusually modest in tone. He called it “one of the least pretentious weddings” he had attended or expected to attend, according to the AP interview.
For Paisley, the invitation carried extra weight because of his long connection to Swift. She opened for him on tour in 2007, when she was still a teenager, and he has spoken positively about her across her career.
He told the AP the invitation felt like a meaningful gesture from Swift. “It was kind of a big thank you from her to invite us,” he said.
A pre-wedding donation
Before the ceremony, Swift and Kelce made a $26 million donation spread across 20 charities in the United States, Rolling Stone reported. The charities were tied to cities with personal importance to the couple.
One of the organizations included was The Store, the Nashville-based nonprofit connected to Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley. The Store works as a free grocery store for families in need.
Paisley thanked Swift and Kelce in an Instagram video before the wedding, calling their gift to The Store “transformative.” He said the donation would help feed many families and described it as a meaningful way to begin a marriage.
“On the eve of the wedding of Tay and Trav, this is really an amazing thing to think about, the gift they gave The Store,” Paisley said in the video, according to Rolling Stone.
For a wedding staged in one of New York’s most famous arenas, Paisley’s takeaway was less about spectacle than sentiment: a tightly held guest plan, a personal invite, and a charitable gift that reached his own Nashville nonprofit.
This story draws on original reporting from Rolling Stone.