There’s been massive media attention focused on the wedding of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce. Hosting 1,000 guests at Madison Square Garden in the heart of Midtown Manhattan, the famed venue was reportedly transformed into a fairytale wonderland for the event.
However, one obvious question arises: how much did it all cost?
An Expert Opinion
People spoke with celebrity event designer Edward Perotti, who’s organized numerous big-budget soirees for some of the world’s wealthiest people.
Noting that he hadn’t personally thrown a bash within MSG, he told the magazine that putting on an event of that magnitude clearly cost the couple a pretty penny.
Transforming MSG Into a Fairytale Wedding Was No Mean Feat
‘“We know it’s gonna be gorgeous,” Perotti explained. “We know the photos are gonna be off the hook. But when you have the location and you think 1,000 people is a lot for a wedding, it’s not. Not when you have a stadium floor or an arena that’s going to hold 20, 45, 30,000 people.”
Then, of course, comes the cost of renting out Madison Square Garden, which does not come cheap. “Close to $1 million a day,” Perotti stated.
That, however, is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. “You don’t get an empty building,” he added. “You’re talking also about a building that’s 58 years old and has the aroma of the soul of New York embedded into the cement and the seats. You’ve got 58 years of hotdogs being cooked and fresh fries and beer on the floor.”
The Expenses Just Keep Piling Up
Then, Perotti explained, come the behind-the-scenes hurdles in what was certainly an epic logistical challenge.
“Most stadiums, they’re union houses, you also have to navigate the union, the workers, and you have to pay them,” he continued. “There’s a snowball effect with it that just kind of automatically comes with it that most people don’t think.”
In addition to those labor costs, other expenses include flowers, lighting and more. Then, of course, there’s the cost of catering, feeding 1,000 hungry guests. “I don’t care [what] five-star catering and chef you can have,” he continued. “It’s still a logistical challenge to [be] catering there at that level — to get that food to the guests in the right way, at the right temperature.”
Once those are all factored in, the price tag becomes enormous. “It’s somewhere in the window of $35 million to $50 million,” Perotti declared.
‘A Herculean Effort’
That said, Perotti is also a firm believer that throwing a lot of money at an event won’t necessarily guarantee it will turn out to be special. “Expensive does not necessarily mean better,” he cautioned.
Meanwhile, it’s no secret that Swift is something of a perfectionist, and it’s a given she was adamant that her big day unfold like clockwork. To achieve that, every single detail needed to be meticulously planned and executed in order to create such a lavish event in a relatively short period of time — which would have certainly added to the cost.
“There’s no way it’s going to fail,” Perotti pointed out. “It is a Herculean effort to pull off what they’re pulling off in that garden.”
