When Taylor Swift, the billionaire pop star, announced her engagement to Travis Kelce, the rather less wealthy (although still multi-millionaire) NFL player, she chose to mark the occasion by declaring, “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married”. It was rather a nice way for Swift to refer to herself and her forthcoming nuptials. Those who, like me, have always been fans of both her and her music had hopes that her wedding to Kelce would not become the usual hideous exercise in celebrity tackiness.
Boy, was I wrong. While the Swift-Kelces, as they may now refer to themselves, have every right to celebrate the happiest day of their lives in whatever style they see fit, the mega-ceremony that was held in New York’s Madison Square Garden last weekend was the last word in empty glitz and excess. It sits at odds with Swift’s carefully cultivated image of literate intelligence and (whisper it) slight asexuality that has ensured her standing as the world’s most successful musician.
When I initially heard the rumors that Swift would be getting wed at a 20,000-person venue (next engagement: Bon Jovi’s Forever Tour tomorrow night) I dismissed them as the usual fanciful nonsense that celebrities like to put out to throw photographers and newshounds – to say nothing of the rabid fandom – off the scent. But, no, on the Friday of July 4 weekend (of course it was Independence Day), a thousand celebrities all turned up at MSG, ready to celebrate the wedding of the century.
The guest list alternated from the predictable (Sabrina Carpenter, Ed Sheeran) to the stately (Steven Spielberg, Tom Hanks, who might have had Saving Private Ryan flashbacks at some of the ceremony’s grislier moments) to the bewildering. Why, apart from Four Weddings and a Funeral vibes, was Hugh Grant there, scowling and looking as if he’d rather be elsewhere? And why on earth was Adam Sandler, of all people, officiating over the service? Was Bishop Michael Curry – who famously married Prince Harry and Meghan Markle – unavailable?
There were so many things about the Swift-Kelce wedding that were in poor taste that it’s hard to know where to begin. The cringeworthy moment where screens lit up outside MSG declaring “JUST&T MARRIED!” Spare us. The presence of once-popular, now-declined comedian Lena Dunham, who raised eyebrows by making a speech that declared that Kelce’s celebrated football career was nothing more than “straight gays enacting gay porn.” The presence of a camera crew, ostensibly to make a private documentary that guests will later be sent as a memento of the happy day, but in fact a grim reminder that it could just as easily end up on Disney +, along with Swift’s other documentaries. And, for that matter, Bob Iger, Disney’s recently departed CEO, stomping about the place, as if he had a vested interest in the whole monetized shebang.
“Nothing speaks to true love quite as much as the prospect of a terrorist attack taking place at the venue”
Swift usually gets a decent press both from writers and on social media, but many have been mystified by this horrendous exercise in vacuousness. There are numerous places that Swift could have got married that would have been far more stylish and inimitable – from the Met to the Frick, and beyond – or she could even have given into the cottagecore whimsy dynamic that she did more to popularize on her albums Folklore and Evermore than any number of trad-influencers who have followed since.
And while it is amusing that the Swift-Kelce choice of musicians who performed at the wedding were defiantly old-school – Stevie Nicks, Paul McCartney – it spoke, or rather sang, volumes about the paucity of contemporary acts who hold a candle to Swift these days. (Excluding, of course, those who she has so publicly fallen out with, such as Katy Perry.)
There were numerous ostentatious gestures, such as the $26 million given away to charitable causes as a thank-you for closing down large parts of Manhattan on such a momentous day in American history. And, no doubt, the newlyweds are now looking at the event – which amusingly had police snipers situated on nearby rooftops, because nothing speaks to true love quite as much as the prospect of a terrorist attack taking place at the venue – with the usual mixture of happiness and slight incredulity that all recently married couples feel.
But it was left up to Donald Trump to troll the event with all his usual lightness of touch, declaring on the official White House X feed that “TRUMP IS YOUR PRESIDENT” over the massive MSG billboards. It was typical Trump – demonstrative, silly and grimly amusing if you like that sort of thing – but it was undeniably a lot more entertaining than anything else that happened during the wedding of the century.
I could not help wondering whether, had Swift married one of the effete British men (Joe Alwyn, Tom Hiddleston, Matty Healy) who she had made a habit of dating, the ceremony would have been quite so absurd. Possibly, but it was amusing that her highest-profile ex, the pop star Harry Styles, was invited but could not attend due to his touring commitments at London’s Wembley Stadium. Purely coincidentally, Styles himself arrives at Madison Square Garden late next month for a record-breaking 30-night residency that will see him installed in the city until late October. Perhaps that will see him crowned the new king of MSG, with Swift’s dubious stardust shaken off from the arena. In any case, it cannot be any more perplexing than this exercise in style over substance.
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