‘Royal wedding’: Wedding planners imagine Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce KC nuptials
.jpg "Travis Kelce proposed to Taylor Swift in his KC-area backyard. So why not get married here, too? Kansas City wedding planners have some thoughts on that.")
Kansas City wedding planner Taylor Paige was on a Zoom call talking about floral design at 12:06 p.m. Tuesday when she heard that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce were engaged. All talk of flowers ceased instantly.
It was the news Swift fans like her wanted. Not only does Paige share a first name with the pop superstar, but she’s been listening to her music since the age of 12.
Her Swiftie bona fides include having once met Kelce’s mother, Donna Kelce, and being at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on the now-famous Night 2 of the Eras Tour in Kansas City, where this love story began in July 2023.
“It kinda feels like my friends got engaged,” the owner of The Perfect Touch KC told The Star.
Wedding fever runs high in Kansas City since the engagement announcement. Within hours of it going public, event spaces across the city offered congratulations — and volunteered to host the nuptials.
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The Kansas City Public Library presented itself as the perfect venue, where the couple could be “surrounded by love stories and parchment for your paper rings.” The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art threw their hats in the ring, too.
Kansas City wedding planners can’t help but envision what a made-in-KC wedding would look like. For sure, they say, it would be unlike any wedding the city has ever seen, likely a multi-day event with guests from around the country, if not world.
“This would be like a royal wedding. It is that level,” said Michelle Layman, owner of Events by Elle in Kansas City. “I would hope for their sake that they get to have some intimacy, and at the same time, I think here in Kansas City we would hope to believe it would be like Super Bowl meets the Eras Tour, right?
“I know we want to imagine what would their colors be, what would the design be, but the logistics of something like that is beyond your imagination. You would shut the city down, really, and you would have to do it quietly in a way that nobody knew what was going on.”
As the planner of some of the most high-end weddings in Kansas City, Layman knows the tricks of maintaining a veil of secrecy around an event that everyone wants to watch. Not telling guests the venue until 48 hours before. Planning fake events to fool prying eyes. Using aliases for the happy couple. Of course, non-disclosure agreements must be signed.
“I think the most interesting thing is that people don’t realize what kinds of logistics are involved in that. It is highly detailed,” she said. “... That level of logistics — it’s wild.”
If she could plan it, “I would love for it to be downtown just to show off that we don’t just have a lot of cows here in Kansas City. We actually are a real city,” Layman said. “I would say there’s this hub in the downtown area that could essentially use multiple landmarks for their event.
“You have Union Station, Nelson-Atkins, Kauffman and then Liberty Memorial, too. Throw up some tents at Liberty Memorial. And with Liberty Memorial being right across from Union Station it would almost be like that elevated experience where you’re going from one (venue) to the next. And then, of course, Nelson-Atkins is beautiful.”
Layman assumes Swift and Kelce will hire “the most exclusive planner in the world,” she said.
Martha Stewart has offered her services in an Instagram post in which she jokingly wrote: “It’s time to call in the ultimate wedding planner.”
“If you don’t want to plan that, you’re crazy,” said Layman. “At the same time, I would be ecstatic to be on the team planning it. I do feel like, if it were to happen in Kansas City, that they would have no choice but to use some (local) vendors because you need the logistics support from people that know the city.
“Kansas City is all near and dear to our hearts and I think the community here is different than any other community. We are very proud of our city, so of course we would want it here. But who knows where it will be?”
Maybe a backyard Kansas City wedding?
As a Swiftie who knows all the songs and the singer’s aesthetic, Paige feels plugged into what Swift might want her wedding to look like. As a wedding planner for five years, she knows how Kansas City could give that to her.
“My first thoughts when I thought what would Travis and Taylor’s wedding look like were not actually about design or venue,” Paige said. “It was about how they wanted to feel on their wedding day. As both Taylor and Travis are in the spotlight, they really crave — and we can kind of hear this from her music — those intimate moments where she gets to be really close to the people she loves.
“I think she’s looking for intimacy. You know, she’s played on the biggest stages, her name is No. 1 in the world, and she deserves and also wants that real life, just as much as anybody else.”
If they chose to marry in Kansas City, Paige’s top-3 venue recommendations are iconic buildings: Union Station, the Nelson-Atkins and the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
Or, “I also think there would be an opportunity for her to have a backyard wedding,” said Paige. “I think that fits their vibe. It’s very intimate. She holds really big importance to locations, so since that’s the location she got engaged, I think there’s an option that they might get married in the backyard.”
She envisions Swift in a princess-like ballgown, not unlike some of her most jaw-dropping Eras Tour costumes. “She uses a lot of those themes in her songs, talking about how she’s Juliet, she wants to feel enchanted,” said Paige. “A lot of her themes revolve around that royalty or that princess fairy-tale vibe, and I think that it will match.”
Paige recently planned a “massive project” with a secret garden/”Bridgerton” theme, “and it very much replicates what that proposal actually looked like,” she said.
“I think there are some amazing (local) vendors. She definitely needs the top ones. For example, a florist, Good Earth, would nail it, knock it out of the park. That’s the first one that comes to mind.
“My first thought out of wedding caterers, I love Olive Events. They are a specialty caterer in town, luxury, very customized ...
“For cakes, I really love Blue Thistle. Best wedding cakes in town by far. I think that they would also want to bring in some experience for their guests, making sure that their guests feel seen and celebrated. So maybe a live painter. I really love Libby Rule Paints.”
If Swift wanted to include her three beloved cats, “I know a lot of people recommend having the cats as part of the ceremony,” said Paige.
“But for her I could see her doing something a little more intimate and having the cats come maybe at the sunset hour and doing some portraits with just the cats, her and Travis, so she gets to have that special moment with her three babies.”
Her vision also includes a pre-wedding celebration in Kelce’s backyard that would involve some of the couple’s famous musicians friends “kind of playing them into the night, under starlight, the night before the wedding,” she said. “Again, something really intimate. She wants some of her people there, not necessarily to put on a show.”
It’s a wedding, not a show
Wedding planner Mallory McNeal echoed the sentiment that Swift wouldn’t want a wedding that looks like a show.
“I don’t know these people personally, so I don’t want to over-speak, but I feel like so much of their relationship has gone viral and been very public. It’s been celebrated and supported. I do think an intimate ceremony where they can really focus on one another, their closest and dearest people, rather than it being a show for everyone else would be really meaningful,” said the owner of Wildly Yours Creative Studio.
“And that’s something I try to instill and support in the weddings I plan for my non-celeb couples, is that there is an element of this that is supposed to be very meaningful and slow and intentional and just for the two of you, because the relationship and marriage is what’s going to last ultimately.
“Everything else is fun and gorgeous and a celebration and an element of hospitality. But you need to have that one moment that’s going to be private and special for the two of you and your closest people that are going to support you throughout the years.”
Without knowing how big the guest list would be, McNeal said she would choose one of two venues for them: the Nelson-Atkins or Hotel Kansas City downtown. “But I think my No. 1 pick would be the Nelson-Atkins ... amp up the Kansas City vibes in a timeless, classic way,” McNeal said.
Having them choose Kansas City for their wedding “sounds like it brings so much of their roots into this story about how their relationship started,” McNeal said. “I also am really, really passionate about supporting small businesses and entrepreneurs in areas that you have kind of built some story and some foundation in.
“So it would bring a lot of really great attention to, specifically, small businesses in Kansas City that have promoted and supported Taylor and Travis since day one. And it would really keep the business of the wedding local to our city.”
Kansas City’s location in the middle of the country would also make travel easy, in and out, for guests. About half of McNeal’s clientele flies in from out-of-state to marry here.
The wedding she would plan for Swift and Kelce in Kansas City would be at the Nelson-Atkins. She would choose chef Amante Domingo, owner of The Russell on Main and Noka, to cater.
“Someone local, someone I would love to support and someone extremely creative when it comes to his food stylings and the menus he creates,” she said. “He also sources a lot of local ingredients. ... I also know that the Chiefs love Noka. Patrick and Brittany (Mahomes) have had some parties there.”
If the Nelson hosted the wedding, she would have the bride and groom and guests stay at nearby The Truitt and The Aida KC, boutique hotels. “They are absolutely gorgeous. The styling has been sourced locally. A lot of vintage and estate finds. they’re just beautiful places for photos,” she said.
Especially for this wedding, entertainment can’t be an afterthought. McNeal would hire Eric James of Golden Hour Official to produce the party. He uses light mapping, or projection mapping — a technology that projects images, videos and animations on walls. It’s a lighting technique popular at L.A. and international weddings, she said.
And she would recommend local DJ Max James, who also owns Intelligence Check Trivia.
“I think Travis is a funny guy, so I think someone who has a little bit of tongue-in-cheek sense of humor like I know Max James does would be right up Travis’ alley,” McNeal said.
She knows every other planner in the country would “love to be friends with Taylor.” But McNeal can offer the superstar and the football star what most others, even Martha Stewart, cannot.
She also happens to be a licensed marriage and family therapist, owner of True Grit Co. Therapy.
“I view weddings as they’re very, very happy,” she said. “But there are a lot of eyes on you and that can bring a lot of anxiety. And talking about Taylor and Travis, they’re used to having eyes on them.
“But this is their first time getting married, so there’s going to be a lot of emotions come up and a lot of pressure. And I think any couple, celebrity or not, can face a lot of challenges because you’re combining family dynamics, combining finances, you’re combining so many things.
“And everyone around you tells you this is supposed to just be the happiest time of your life, but sometimes it’s the hardest time too because you’re facing so many new challenges together.
“So I’m very passionate about supporting my couples and navigating that when it comes to planning their wedding, and they get a little bit of free marital therapy whether they know it or not.”
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