Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s love story, from friendship bracelets to wedding rings

What started with a friendship bracelet has resulted in wedding rings. Taylor Swift, the pop superstar, and Travis Kelce, the football champion, have officially tied the knot.

The couple, both 36, were married Friday at Madison Square Garden, according to Swift's publicist. The news was announced to the public with the marquee outside the Midtown Manhattan arena reading “JUST&T MARRIED."

It is the latest chapter in the couple’s love story, one that has spanned three years, two Super Bowls, an album announcement and the highest-grossing tour of all time.

Here is a look at some of the major events in their relationship.

It started, fittingly, with a friendship bracelet.

It was way back in July 2023 that Kelce attended Swift’s Eras concert at Arrowhead Stadium, where the Chiefs play.

After, on his “New Heights” podcast with brother Jason Kelce, he professed to being disappointed — well, his word was “butthurt” — that he couldn’t meet Swift and present her with a bracelet with his phone number on it.

“She doesn’t meet anybody, or at least she didn’t want to meet me, so I took it personal,” he quipped. The podcast asked on Instagram: “Anyone know how to get a bracelet to @taylorswift13? … asking for a friend.”

But by that September, Kelce was hinting his efforts had achieved some success. He declined to elaborate amid speculation, telling an interviewer: “It is what it is.”

Clearly, though, something was happening. Soon, Kelce revealed he’d invited Swift to a game at Arrowhead. “I threw the ball in her court,” he said on another talk show.

Swift took Kelce up on his offer, appearing for all the world to see at the Chiefs-Bears game, cheering next to his mom, Donna Kelce. The two left the stadium in Kelce’s purple Chevelle “getaway car” — forgive the pun, but Kelce himself used it.

“Pretty ballsy,” Kelce said a few days later of Swift’s appearance, adding how much he loved seeing her cheer next to his mother.

It was the launch of a long series of appearances by Swift at Chiefs games. There was some online angst over whether Swift was distracting from football — while the NFL itself capitalized on her fandom. A day after the flashy Los Angeles premiere of her “Taylor Swift: Eras Tour” movie, she was back at Arrowhead.

And now it was time for Kelce to be the adoring fan. In November 2023, after a hiatus of two months, Swift brought her tour to Argentina, where she changed the lyrics of “Karma” to salute her beau. “Karma is the guy on the Chiefs, coming straight home to me,” she sang. Scott Swift, next to a beaming Kelce, applauded his daughter’s new flame.

When Time magazine announced its person of the year, few were surprised. In the Time interview, Swift spoke about her relationship.

“This all started when Travis very adorably put me on blast on his podcast, which I thought was metal as hell,” Swift said, adding that they’d already been a couple before that first Chiefs game cameo.

Soon after, things were heating up on the football field — meaning the Chiefs were heading to the Super Bowl. At the AFC championship game, the couple made it clear they were fine with whatever attention was coming their way. In the middle of the field in Baltimore, after the Chiefs beat the Ravens, Swift and Kelce kissed. “I love you,” Kelce said. “So much it’s not funny.”

There was one game left. Fans wondered: How would Swift make it from her Tokyo shows to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas?

“This week is truly the best kind of chaos,” Swift posted on Instagram.

Chaos indeed. In one week of February 2024, Swift attended the Grammys in Los Angeles, jetted to Tokyo for four concerts, then jumped back onto her private plane to make the Super Bowl with time to spare. To get there, she crossed nine time zones and the international dateline.

“She’s rewriting the history books herself,” Kelce said a day after the Grammys, where Swift had won album of the year for a record fourth time. “I told her I’ll have to hold up my end of the bargain and come home with hardware, too.”

And he did. The two kissed on the field again after the Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers, Swift in her “87” necklace.

Within days, Swift was on the road again, with Kelce joining her in Australia for some koala-cuddling at the zoo.

In Paris, Swift introduced a section from “The Tortured Poets Department,” her new album. Fans wondered if Kelce had made his way into some of its lyrics — like “You knew what you wanted and, boy, you got her,” from “So High School.”

But the highlight came in June, during a celebrity-packed set of concerts in London. There, Kelce made his Eras stage debut, donning a tuxedo and top hat and carrying Swift in his arms during a choreographed bit before “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.”

“I’m still cracking up/swooning,” Swift wrote later on Instagram.

As for Kelce, he spoke with pride about the relationship, noting on the “Bussin’ with the Boys” podcast that he had no desire to hide anything.

“That’s my girl,” he said. “That’s my lady. I’m proud of that.”

Swift echoed that emotion when she accepted an MTV Video Music Award last September, shouting out “my boyfriend Travis” in her speech.

“Everything this man touches turns to happiness and fun and magic,” she said.

Throughout the summer and fall of 2024, Kelce attended a number of Swift’s remaining tour dates and mentioned her on “New Heights,” officially referring to her as “his girlfriend” in a July episode.

“She is every bit of what everyone makes her out to be. She’s so awesome. Some of these people you meet, and you’re just like, ‘I don’t know what I’m doing here,’” he said. “You are unbelievable, your talent is unbelievable, how you present yourself is unbelievable and I am just a jamoke supporting his girlfriend.”

Swift, too, was regularly photographed attending Kelce’s games — including the 2025 Super Bowl.

A month post-Super Bowl, the couple made their red-carpet debut at the Tight End University in June, an annual three-day training summit founded by Kelce, George Kittle and Greg Olsen.

They were then spotted at Brooklyn Bowl in Nashville, where Swift hopped on stage to perform “Shake it Off” with country singer Kane Brown. For fans, it marked yet another moment of the couple showing very public support and admiration for one another.

A couple that collaborates together, stays together.

Swift announced her highly anticipated 12th studio album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” in mid-August and included Kelce in the rollout. It began with a tease from “New Heights,” which later revealed Swift would appear in an episode the following day.

Swift told the Kelce brothers she wanted to show them something, revealing a mint-green briefcase that featured her initials in orange. Jason Kelce asked what was in it, prompting her to pull out a vinyl record.

In the two-hour “New Heights” episode featuring Swift, she went into detail about the pair’s summer following the Super Bowl. She said she spent considerable time in Florida with Travis Kelce. She also said “our jobs are very similar”: They revolve around entertaining “people for three hours in NFL stadiums.”

On her self-described “favorite podcast,” Swift credited “New Heights” for getting her a boyfriend. “This is sort of what I’ve been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager,” she said of their romance.

And Kelce credited the tour for, well, getting him a girlfriend. “I see you on that stage and see how you can get an entire stadium going, and then I get you in a room and it’s like I’ve known you forever,” he said. “It’s the easiest conversation I ever had, and it was just so much fun that it knocked my socks off.”

In late August, in a five-photo carousel shared to both Swift and Kelce’s official Instagram accounts, the couple announced their engagement. “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married,” she wrote in her caption.

It’s unclear when and where the two got engaged.

The idea seemed too crazy for even the most open-minded Swifty — a wedding at Madison Square Garden? Really? Yet as the July Fourth weekend approached, one of New York's iconic venues began buzzing with activity as crews shuttled equipment into the giant, private space and a law enforcement official confirmed to AP that Swift and Kelce's wedding would be taking place on Friday, July 3.

The couple did not have bridesmaids or groomsmen, instead opting for Swift’s brother to serve as her man of honor and Kelce’s brother Jason serving as his best man. Actor Adam Sandler officiated the star-packed ceremony.

According to Swift's publicist, Swift and Kelce's outfits were designed by Christian Dior Haute Couture and its designer Jonathan Anderson with shoes custom-made by Christian Louboutin. Swift wore Cartier jewelry.

FILE - Travis Kelce, left, and Taylor Swift pose after the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)

FILE - Taylor Swift gets a kiss from Kansas City Chiefs' Travis Kelce as they arrive to watch the men's singles final of the U.S. Open tennis championships in New York on Sept. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II, File)

FILE - Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift kiss after the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)

FILE - Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, right, and Taylor Swift appear after the Chiefs victory over the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship NFL football game in Kansas City, Mo., on Jan. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

FILE - Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce (87) kisses Taylor Swift after the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers at the Super Bowl in Las Vegas on Feb. 11, 2024. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Fans line up outside of Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

A truck believed to be carrying singer Taylor Swift arrives to Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

A Taylor Swift fan wearing a wedding veil sits at a restaurant next to Madison Square Garden where a "JUST&T MARRIED" sign is displayed during a wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

Today will be a fairytale.

Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce's wedding is slated to take place Friday at Madison Square Garden, where the couple's closest friends and family — and several hundred more — will attend what is expected to be an elaborate event inside the iconic New York venue.

Many of the details surrounding the pending nuptials are still unknown, but a city permit obtained by The Associated Press shows that Friday's wedding event is scheduled to start at 5 p.m. and could last until 4 a.m. the next morning. A law enforcement official briefed on security plans had previously told the AP that a smaller rehearsal dinner would be held Thursday night. A tented area shielded guests from view as they were dropped off Thursday evening. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the events publicly.

The wedding is the latest development in the superstar singer and football player's relationship, which has continued to thrill and fascinate millions around the world — particularly the Swifties, the pop star’s enormous and ardent fan base — for the past three years ever since the pair first started dating.

Key questions remain over how Swift and Kelce have transformed MSG into a wedding venue fit for a billionaire and the star tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs, as well as who may perform and who will officiate. Trucks and crews have been going in and out of the venue for days, setting up tents and whisking massive materials inside, setting off more speculation about MSG's makeover.

And while fans have seen Swift wear wedding dresses in plenty of music videos over the years, many also remain eager to see what looks she will unveil at the wedding.

Perhaps the biggest puzzle surrounds the selection of MSG. Swifties, commentators and the public have spent weeks debating the merits of the venue, some convincing themselves that it must be a smoke screen for the wedding to take place elsewhere. Others pointed to the arena's lack of windows and robust security, which would provide a rare opportunity for privacy for one of the most public couples in the world — and crucially, add another layer of protection.

New York City Police Department Commissioner Jessica Tisch has repeatedly declined to confirm that Swift and Kelce’s wedding would take place Friday at MSG but has said her department will have appropriate resources at each major event over the weekend, including at the venue.

The wedding is taking place during a jam-packed weekend even by New York's standards. It's the July Fourth weekend, where the city will be partake in celebrating the nation's 250th birthday. Separately, a parade of dozens of tall ships will take place on the Hudson River, and a World Cup game is scheduled in New Jersey. On top of everything, a massive heat wave is also coming to the northeast.

Earlier this week, Swift and Kelce donated $26 million to 20 local and national charities across the U.S. Many of the organizations were located in areas where the couple has deep ties, including Nashville, Tennessee; Los Angeles; Kansas City, Missouri; and New York.

FILE - Travis Kelce, left, and Taylor Swift pose after the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis, File)

Taylor Swift fans hold signs outside of Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

A Taylor Swift fan wearing a wedding veil sits at a restaurant next to Madison Square Garden where a "JUST&T MARRIED" sign is displayed during a wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

Fans line up outside of Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

A "Just Married" sign is displayed on Madison Square Garden during a wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Friday, July 3, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

K-9's walk into Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Thursday, July 2, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

NYPD officers stand by outside of Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Thursday, July 2, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)

A worker unloads portable air-conditioning units outside of Madison Square Garden ahead of a reported wedding between singer Taylor Swift and National Football League player Travis Kelce on Thursday, July 2, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)