With Taylor Swiftโs wedding of the century rumored to be held at New York Cityโs famed Madison Square Garden this summer, the question remains: Whatโs the price tag on a wedding at the Worldโs Most Famous Arena?
TODAY.com spoke to luxury wedding planners and event experts, whoโve had experience with organizing some of the most opulent parties and nuptials, to get their take on how much a MSG wedding could cost. While itโs impossible to pinpoint an exact number without details on guest count, decor and more, experts say the ballpark costs are, unsurprisingly, a pretty penny.
โYouโre not getting out alive for under $15 million to $25 million,โ estimates Alyssa Pettinato, founder of New Yorkโbased luxury wedding planning and event design firm Alinato Events.
Though details have yet to be confirmed, developments appear to support the rumor that Swift and Travis Kelce will have their big day at the Garden. A source at the venue, who declined to be identified to discuss the confidential matter, told NBC News that the arena has been blocked off from July 2 through July 4 for an event. Dora Pekec, a spokesperson for the New York City Mayorโs Office, also confirmed to NBC News that a permit filed with the city, as first reported by The New York Times, requested street closures near the arena, a crowd between 500 and 999 people and a tent set up outside.
Others who want to get married at the legendary arena may be in for some sticker shock. According to the MSG website, the venue is available to rent for events that call โfor a space unmatched in scale, history and excitement.โ The arena itself can hold up to 19,500 guests. Other areas of the Garden are also available for rent, including its famed theater and exclusive clubs and lounges. Wedding planners estimate that the space alone will skyrocket the budget into the millions.
Madison Square Garden did not respond to TODAY.comโs request for comment. Representatives for Kelce and Swift have not responded to requests for comment and confirmation about reported wedding details.
The Venue
A source with knowledge of the matter, who is among the invitees, told NBC News that Swift and Kelceโs wedding festivities at Madison Square Garden on July 3 are expected to have more than 1,000 attendees.
Ashley Smith, owner and creative director of luxury planning and design company Ashley Smith Events, explains that the couple would typically need to rent out the space not only for the day of the wedding ceremony and festivities, but also for the days surrounding the event to allow for the venueโs transformation. Thereโs often an insurance fee as well, Smith says.
Venues as large as the Garden also often come with preferred vendors and unionized labor for staging, lighting and other crew, she says. And if the couple has their own crew and vendors in mind, theyโd have to buy out the Gardenโs own people.
Both Pettinato and Smith say single-day rental fees for the Garden range upwards of $1 million to $2 million, meaning the cost of the venue alone could reach $8 million to $10 million.
โIt might be something like a three or four day buyout of Madison Square Garden,โ Smith says. โIf weโre talking multiple days and all the factors that go into it, (cost) starts to creep up really fast.โ
The Decor
Beyond the venue itself, couples also would have to budget for the costs of decor. And MSG has quite a wealth of space that needs to be transformed, Pettinato says. Decor alone, both experts say, could reach the $20 million mark.
โWe have to think about it like this: How tall is Madison Square Garden? How high is that ceiling from the floor?โ Pettinato says. โIf youโre trying to put something thatโs going to cover some of these more gaudy aspects of it, youโve got to get a crane in there.โ
As of June 30, crews were photographed outside of the Garden, unloading trucks and moving around large items under tarps and black garbage bags. One crew member was seen wearing a โTaylor Swift Carpentersโ shirt.
Smith says that cavernous spaces generally require much more decoration and treatments to make the space feel personal. Oftentimes, scenic walls are created to do so.
โIf theyโre going to divvy up that space, you create faux walls,โ Smith says. โThereโs a lot of draping, covering the ceiling, those types of things so that weโre not seeing all the big heavy equipment in there.โ
The Security
One of the biggest expenses for celebrities and any high profile figures who have weddings at such major venues is security, Pettinato and Smith say. A source among those invited told NBC News that guests received electronic invites along with non-disclosure agreements. But Pettinato says the coupleโs security likely doesnโt stop with NDAs. Securing the area would likely cost around $1 million to $2 million a day, she says.
โA private security company, often with former political security people, is expensive for those skills,โ Pettinato says. โIf youโre using them for multiple days to secure a site, and also monitor every single piece of it, from who comes in to what everyoneโs doing in that room โฆ Itโs an operation.โ
Pettinato says she once planned a wedding that was attended by a Supreme Court justice. The justiceโs presence necessitated a sweep of the area, weeks before the event.
โThey even had me explain the type of flowers (at the wedding) so that they could know what was being put in front of the Supreme Court justice in case it was laced with poison,โ she says.
Security for these major events, Pettinato says, often ends up being one of the biggest expenses.
More Potential Costs
The costs, of course, donโt stop there. Thereโs also food, which can cost around $600 a head for a three-course meal, Smith says. So for a 200-person wedding, catering and beverage costs can total more than $100,000. Swiftโs wedding is expected to have many more guests โ around 1,100 people at the festivities on July 3, the invited source told NBC News.
Entertainment fees are astronomical as well, depending on who is performing. So far, Stevie Nicks, whom Swift has performed with in the past, is rumored to be playing at the wedding, according to Rolling Stone. According to a celebrity booking agency, her fee can start at around $2 million.
So Who Gets To Have A Wedding At The Garden?
Unsurprisingly, weddings at a venue like the Garden are rare, and likely only attainable to those who can easily spend upwards of $10 million, Smith says.
There have been just two known weddings at the venue. The first was between musician Sly Stone and model Kathy Silva, who got married at the Garden in 1974 during one of his concerts. According to the New York Times, the ceremony involved a full wedding party, including the coupleโs four parents, and took place in front of 23,000 fans. Later on, a more private reception of 400 people was held at the Waldorf-Astoria.
The other ceremony was a 1982 mass wedding of 2,075 couples performed by Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the controversial Unification Church, often referred to as the โMoonies.โ Couples, dressed in identical blue suits and wedding dresses made by the church, had their nuptials on the arenaโs floor, which was carpeted in all white, according to the Times.