Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce marry at Madison Square Garden

Taking over Madison Square Garden, one of New York’s iconic fixtures, alone is a feat requiring millions. Later, the couple also blocked off the area where one of the city’s main transportation hubs is located. The show showcased the power the couple had; Swift became widely recognized as one of the most powerful and famous people in the world.

Their two-day wedding celebration sparked news coverage, lit up the Empire State Building in New York and spurred an online betting market worth millions as details of their wedding kept people speculating for weeks.

Popular culture critic Kristen Meinzer told the BBC that the pairing makes sense because Swift and Kelce are from two important worlds when it comes to popular culture and American identity.

“We worship the throne of music and football, those are all the things we love in America when married together,” he said.

New York City also has a long-standing ethos of treating celebrities as part of the fabric of daily life rather than treating them as spectacle.

“We are not people who run to our celebrities, we usually leave them alone,” Meinzer added.

The Pennsylvania-born singer has lived in New York since 2014; He bought two adjoining penthouses in Tribeca for $20 million (£15 million) and combined them into one huge living space.

She fell in love with the city after discovering she could go shopping undisturbed, saying it was “physically different” since moving there. This move also inspired the 1989 album track Welcome to New York.

Kelce, who lives in Kansas for his American football career, was introduced to the Big Apple in 2023 when he started dating Swift.

Planning experts told the BBC the couple likely spent tens of millions of dollars renting the iconic arena.

The billionaire singer and wealthy athlete donated $26 million (around £19.5 million) to more than 20 charities ahead of the celebrations but made no mention of a wedding.

While the 20,000-capacity arena, which hosts concerts and sports matches attended by beer-guzzling fans, may seem to many to be an unusual choice for the couple, the venue has an unusual level of privacy due to its lack of windows and underground access points. But many said that if anyone could transform the arena into a wedding wonderland, it would be Swift.

“I thought it would be more gardens, more flowers, more tropical. I thought it would be something flashier, more Taylor Swift,” Canadian teenager Emily told the BBC in front of the venue.

Rose, who lives in New York, said it was “kind of ridiculous” for the couple to block the busy streets around the arena, but she believed the ceremony would be beautiful “because it’s Taylor Swift.”

“I hope it’s a beautiful wedding… but I think they should do it somewhere that would be less disruptive to the general public of New York City,” she laughed.

Fans cheered outside Madison Square Garden as the newlywed signs lit up outside the arena.

Fan Tara Rosales was one of many who were not convinced the wedding would take place at the famous arena.

“I knew he was getting married in New York but I had no idea where it would be. So I can’t believe it, I’m really shaken and so excited,” she said.

“It’s never a bother. Taylor can do whatever she wants.”