Taylor Swift marrying at Madison Square Garden? MSG hosted historic wedding in ‘82
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- TMZ was reported to have 'leaked' a July 3 wedding date, but it's unconfirmed.
- Rumors claimed about 1,000 guests inside the 20,000-seat arena, unconfirmed.
- Fans reacted by disputing the TMZ leak and debating venue setup and authenticity.
Ever since rumors popped up that Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce will get married at Madison Square Garden, fans have divided themselves into a couple of camps.
Hardcore Swifties are incensed that TMZ “leaked” the intel of a July 3 ceremony in front of about 1,000 guests and threatened to do the same with the alleged guest list. Rumors. All rumors at this point.
Then other fans are trying to imagine what a romantic wedding — you just know it will have a fairytale theme — would look like inside the cavernous, 20,000-seat House of Knicks.
Will they take the seats out? Will there be a tent?
Or, is this all just fake news designed to throw the media off the scent of the real location and date?
But even if they get married there, they won’t be making history.
The most historic wedding at Madison Square Garden took place on July 1, 1982, when 2.075 couples simultaneously got married in a mass wedding sponsored by The Unification Church — officially the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification.
Followers of the church’s founder, the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, were known (often derogatorily) as “Moonies.”
The church is known for hosting mass weddings, “The Blessing,” for thousands of couples at a time.
“If Taylor Swift gets married in Madison Square Garden she’s not the first. 2075 of us couples were married there July l, 1982. After almost 44 years still going strong by most of us,” one of the brides, Facebook user Sydelle Enyeart, wrote earlier this week.
“Marriage we called the Blessing was officiated by Rev. and Mrs Sun Myung Moon. So I wish them a happy lifelong marriage too.”
The more than 4,000 brides and grooms wore matching outfits — the brides in identical white gowns, grooms in dark suits and red ties.
Demonstrating that the arena floor can, in fact, be transformed into a wedding venue, a huge white carpet was laid on the floor and an altar erected on a stage. Moon officiated.
Flags of various nations decorated the space. Moon himself, who died in 2012, matched some of the couples, some of whom came from different cultural backgrounds and didn’t speak the same language. In the Unification Church today, parents and matchmakers often do the matching.
More than four decades later, some who got married that day and are still wed mark their anniversaries on social media.
Two years ago, on her parents’ anniversary, a daughter of one of the couples posted a video of the ceremony on Instagram.
“On July 1st, 1982, two thousand and seventy-five couples gathered together at Madison Square Garden to be married in a mass wedding ceremony performed by Sun Myung Moon,” she wrote.
“My parents were among them. Without this weird ritual, I simply wouldn’t exist.”
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