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When Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce tied the knot at Madison Square Garden on July 3, 2026, the guest list read like a who’s who of, well, everything in the world. From athletes to actors, dignitaries to divas, it was a celebrity-filled smorgasbord. Among the attendees were a handful of country music stars who made the trek from Nashville (and beyond) to celebrate their genre’s onetime princess — who may be making a return to her roots. Rumor has it her next album will follow in the footsteps of her Toy Story single, “I Knew It, I Knew You,” which has a decidedly country slant.

So was Swift just pandering to the twangy side of the spectrum with those invites, to reingratiate herself to Nashville? To learn the answer, we must turn to the history books. Here’s what ties some of Nashville’s most notable names from Taylor and Travis’ RSVP list to the happy couple. 

Confirmed Attendees

Maren Morris
The “My Church” singer made her entrée into the Swiftie-verse in 2018 when she joined Taylor onstage to perform her own hit, “The Middle,” during the Arlington, Texas, stop of The Reputation Stadium Tour. Later, Morris would appear as a feature on “You All Over Me,” one of the unreleased vault tracks on Fearless (Taylor’s Version) in 2021.

Kelsea Ballerini
Country crossover star Ballerini has never made a secret of her Swiftie fandom. In early interviews, the singer and The Voice coach credited Swift as one of her biggest influences. When the superstar posted on social media that she was listening to Ballerini’s 2015 debut album, The First Time,shortly after its release, the “Peter Pan” singer replied, “You are one of the main reasons I started writing songs and being fearless (ay?) enough to do this. That just made my year.” Ballerini would later make an appearance onstage with Swift at the Nashville stop of her 1989 World Tour.

Little Big Town
All four members of the award-winning country group (Karen Fairchild, Kimberly Schlapman, Phillip Sweet, and Jimi Westbrook) were in attendance at the Madison Square nuptials and for good reason. Swift wrote one of the band’s most awarded songs, the 2016 release “Better Man.” Originally written for her own 2012 album Red, Taylor pitched the song to LBT (her first time taking one of her songs to another artist) for their 2017 album The Breaker. It became a Number One hit across both the Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts, won Song of the Year at the 51st Annual Country Music Association Awards in 2017, received the award for Best Country Duo/Group Performance at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards in 2018, and earned Swift a nomination for Best Country Song that same night. In 2021, Swift released the song as a vault track on Red (Taylor’s Version).

Editor’s picks

Kristian Bush and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland 
One of country music’s most beloved duos, Sugarland made a splash (as a then-trio) with their 2002 hit “Baby Girl.” It was around that time that Swift became a fan. According to Nettles in a 2018 Billboard interview, “When she was first getting started we had just had our first little EP out, called Premium Quality Tunes. She still has a copy of it that we signed for her whenever we played a couple of shows together.” In 2018, Sugarand released their sixth studio album, Bigger, with the Swift-penned track “Babe” (co-written with Train’s Pat Monahan in 2012) as the second single, complete with a music video featuring the superstar. (The song marked the first time Bush and Nettles had released a song written by someone else.) In 2021, Swift included her own performance of “Babe” as a vault track on Red (Taylor’s Version). Like Morris, Sugarland joined Swift onstage in Arlington during the Reputation Stadium Tour in 2018.

Brad Paisley 
Paisley and his wife, actress Kimberly Williams-Paisley, posted several photos ahead of the Madison Square Garden party, including one with celeb pals Seth Meyers and his wife, human rights attorney Alexi Ashe. In 2008, Paisley asked Swift to join his Bonfires & Amplifiers Tour as one of three opening acts. Still unknown to many (her debut single “Tim McGraw” came out in June of 2006), Swift performed a short opening set, which occasionally included Sugarland’s “Baby Girl,” and kicked off with Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” (It was a different time.) She also made a cameo in the music video for Paisley’s 2007 hit “Online.” The two remained friendly over the years, and the day before Swift’s wedding, Paisley and Williams-Paisley posted a video to Instagram thanking Swift and Kelce for their $2 million donation to the Store, the couple’s Nashville nonprofit with a mission to “nourish communities and cultivate hope by providing nutritious food choices and access to supportive services in a dignified, loving environment.” 

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Miranda Lambert
The “Crisco” singer and her husband, [former] hot cop Brendan McLoughlin, joined their Nashville pals on the party bus to MSG. And while we haven’t seen much interaction between Lambert and Swift over the years, we do know that the two singers came up in Nashville around the same time, with Lambert dropping her first album Kerosene in 2005, just a year before Taylor made her own debut. In 2015, Swift brought Lambert onstage with her during a Greensboro, North Carolina, stop of the 1989 World Tour to perform her hit song “Little Red Wagon.” While seemingly the least connected to Swift, Lambert provided the world with a lot of pre-wedding content, sharing a series of behind-the-scenes shots of Morris, Ballerini, Bush, and Little Big Town on Instagram. 

Joe Don Rooney
At least one-third of Rascal Flatts was in attendance for the Tayvis nuptials: Lead guitarist Joe Don Rooney posted a photo of himself with girlfriend Jenny Hecht (in addition to a limo selfie) prior to the event. Rascal Flatts were the first big act to extend a tour-opening spot to Swift … but only after their first choice, Eric Church, was fired for playing past his allotted timeframe. In 2006, Swift joined the Me and My Gang tour, with Church later sharing that she called him to make sure the two had no, ahem, bad blood. Church assured Swift that he wasn’t upset with her, but told her that she owed him a copy of her first gold record when she made it big. Seven days later, Swift reached the milestone and a few weeks later she surprised the “Springsteen” singer with a copy on his bus. Oh, and Church’s last show with the Flatts? Well, that took place at Madison Square Garden, of course. 

The Chicks
Natalie Maines, Martie Maguire, and Emily Strayer, a.k.a. the Chicks, were all in attendance for the wedding festivities. The trio posted photos in their finery with captions including, “we woke up like this” and “What?!” Their appearance was not a surprise to longtime Swift fans, who recall that the group was one of her earliest inspirations. The singer has not only said that the Chicks’ 1999 smash “Cowboy Take Me Away” was the first song she learned to play on guitar, but she also told Billboard that the band’s honesty and activism paved the way for her. “Early in my life, these three women showed me that female artists can play their own instruments while also putting on a flamboyant spectacle of a live show,” Swift said in a 2020 interview with the magazine. “They taught me that creativity, eccentricity, unapologetic boldness, and kitsch can all go together authentically. Most importantly, they showed an entire generation of girls that female rage can be a bonding experience between us all the very second we first heard Natalie Maines bellow ‘that Earl had to DIE.’” Inspired and empowered, Swift would go on to collab with the Chicks multiple times. In 2015, she invited Maines onstage during the Los Angeles stop of the 1989 World Tour to perform “Goodbye Earl”, and in 2019 the Chicks appeared on the Lover song “Soon You’ll Get Better,” an emotional ode to Swift’s mother Andrea, who was undergoing a cancer battle. 

Rumored Guests

Kenny Chesney
Eagle-eyed Swifties noticed that Chesney cancelled his early July shows in April, possibly hinting that the “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy” singer had somewhere else to be. An appearance at Taylor’s wedding would make sense: In 2007, she was slated to open for Chesney on his Flip FlopTour, but the beer company that was sponsoring the tour told Chesney that he couldn’t have a minor on the bill. Chesney called Swift personally to break the news and sent her a check to cover her losses. Swift later told Time: “It was for more money than I’d ever seen in my life. I was able to pay my band bonuses. I was able to pay for my tour buses. I was able to fuel my dreams.” 

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Tim McGraw
Taylor’s relationship with the “Live Like You Were Dying” singer goes far beyond her debut single’s title (“Tim McGraw”). In fact, young Swift impressed her muse so much that he invited her to be an opening act on the Soul2Soul Tour, on which he shared top billing with his wife, Faith Hill. The couple mentored young Taylor for years, and she often collaborated with them. McGraw included her as a feature on his hit “Highway Don’t Care” along with Keith Urban, and Swift invited McGraw (and Hill) to join her onstage many times throughout the years. So it’s not a surprise that McGraw was rumored to have performed at the wedding, along with iconic names like Paul McCartney and Stevie Nicks. Not to mention, June was the 20-year anniversary of the release of “Tim McGraw.”

Eric Church 
While there have been no reported sightings of the Chief at MSG, Swifties are speculating that Church was indeed in attendance at the wedding. Given his history with the star (see above) and his continued support of her career, we wouldn’t be surprised to learn if he’d been there, Ray-Bans and all. %!s()

She says the station lit up before everything went dark. "In front of us there were injured people, blood, burnt cars, and smashed cars."

We have withheld the student's real name for her safety in a city that is the latest flash-point in the three-year war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Sarah told the BBC by phone that she was fortunate to survive the attack, but had sustained injuries.

"I got shrapnel in my leg and hand because I was outside the car when the second missile struck."

Currently under army control, el-Obeid - the capital of North Kordofan state with a population of around 500,000 - has one of the largest military bases in central Sudan.

But the army has been unable to repel the drone strikes, with 27 hitting the city in June, the highest monthly total since the conflict began, according to violence monitoring group Acled.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk said at least 45 people were killed and 41 injured in 15 drone strikes between 6 and 28 June.

He added that the city has been under siege-like conditions for 18 months, with summary executions, abductions, torture and sexual violence taking place along routes used by people fleeing the conflict.

"The signs from el-Obeid are clear and unmistakable: Another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in Sudan," Turk said last week in an address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

Nathaniel Raymond, the executive director of US-based Yale University's Humanitarian Research Lab, told the BBC that el-Obeid was strategically significant for the warring sides, lying between the RSF-controlled west of the country, with the east mostly in the hands of the army.

"If you control el-Obeid, you control the road to the capital, Khartoum and [its twin city] Omdurman, and so the army has to defend el-Obeid," he said.

A doctor at a hospital in the city told the BBC they were struggling to cope with the influx of casualties.

"We receive injured patients after almost every drone attack. Most of the injuries involve limbs while some patients suffer from head injuries," she said.

One of the most distressing cases the doctor has treated was a seven-month old baby.

"Her hand had to be amputated because of the severity of the injury, but sadly she did not survive.

"The situation is frightening. You leave your house as if you will never return," the doctor said, trying to hold back tears. "We are really suffering from the drones - no-one knows how and when they will die."

Amnesty International secretary-general Agnès Callamard has warned that al-Obeid could face violence on a scale similar to that seen in el-Fasher when the RSF captured it after laying siege to it, also for 18 months.

"What happened in el-Fasher is not an oddity. It is not a moment of madness. It is a playbook," she said.

The UN said early last year that the conflict in el-Fasher bore the "hallmarks of genocide," with more than 6,000 people killed in just three days, with the mostly Arab RSF fighters accused of slaughtering non-Arab groups.

The RSF has repeatedly denied these accusations. In a statement responding to warnings of an impending massacre in el-Obeid, the paramilitary group said it would "work diligently" to ensure the full protection of the city's residents, and that it was operating in full compliance with international law.

Raymond said satellite imagery showed that at least eight fuel stations had suffered damage consistent with bombardment between late May and late June.

As a result, fuel is starting to run short in the city leading to huge price rises.

El-Obeid's main electrical substation, as well as residential neighbourhoods and markets, also came under attack in an apparent attempt to cripple daily life, he added.

"Without fuel and electricity, the water pumps in the city will stop working and civilians, including internally displaced people, will start drinking water that could be contaminated and cause waterborne disease," Raymond told the BBC.

El-Obeid's population includes about 100,000 people who have fled violence in other other areas, hoping the city would be safe.

Raymond said that in a single month, about 700 temporary structures had been built in camps for displaced people around el-Obeid.

Among those who moved to the city is a humanitarian worker whom we have named Ahmed.

He first fled Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan, then Khartoum, and now fears he will have to leave el-Obeid as drone strikes intensify.

"People are always in shock and fear. They are unable to sleep," he told the BBC.

"Many of us sleep outside because of the heat. When the drones are flying overhead, making that noise, every night becomes a sleepless night."

Sarah said many people were scared to step out of their homes.

"People now leave their homes saying goodbye to their families because they don't know if they will return or not." %!s()

Sandler was reportedly the “perfect person” to officiate the singer-songwriter and football star because he’s “been happily married for so many years.” Sandler and his wife, Jackie Sandler, wed in June 2003 and have remained together for over two decades.

While some information about the secretive ceremony inside Madison Square Garden has begun to get out, most of the main details have remained under wraps (for now). However, People is shedding more light on what Sandler was like as an officiant.

“He wasn’t trying to find the perfect words or make it this big production,” the source told the outlet. “He just wanted to speak from the heart and pass along a little wisdom that he’s gained from his own happy marriage.”

Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid also recounted the marriage advice Sandler gave the newlyweds in a Sunday interview with Deseret News.

“He told them to ‘keep kissing,’” Reid said. “So, in its simplest form, that’s a good thing. It’s hard to argue when you give your wife a kiss, or your wife gives you a kiss. And make sure you do it every day, every minute that you have an opportunity to do it. Knock it out, and you won’t have problems.”

“In a simple, hysterical way, he was phenomenal,” Reid added. “He’s crazy, but he did a great job in getting them married with a lot of humor. But, that part there I thought, pretty good advice, in its simplest form.”

The Happy Gilmore actor, too, reportedly performed an original song at their wedding. Swift is rumored to have taken the stage herself alongside Stevie Nicks and Paul McCartney.

As The Hollywood Reporter correctly predicted ahead of their July 3 ceremony, the “Love Story” singer wore a custom haute couture gown by Jonathan Anderson of Christian Dior. The groom matched with a haute couture look by Anderson for Dior; Swift and Kelce both sported Christian Louboutin shoes, as Swift wore Cartier jewelry.

Friday night, Madison Square Garden displayed a “JusT&T Married!” sign, finally confirming the couple tied the knot. Jason Sudeikis, Hugh Grant, Ethan Hawke, the Haim sisters, Dakota Johnson, Julianne Moore, Sombr, Mariska Hargitay, Bradley Cooper and Gigi Hadid were just some of the guests spotted arriving at the famed venue on Friday, July 3.
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If those two processes could be separated, however, engineers could direct heat much more precisely. A material could absorb thermal energy from one direction while releasing it in another, potentially improving thermal management, energy conversion, infrared sensing, and thermal communication technologies.

A Material That Can Control Heat

To overcome this limitation, an international team led by Professor Koichi Okamoto and Dr. Shunsuke Murai of Osaka Metropolitan University's Graduate School of Engineering developed a new type of device using magneto-optical materials. These materials change the way they interact with light when exposed to a magnetic field, making it possible to alter their thermal behavior.

The researchers paired a magneto-optical material with a phase change material known as GST. The resulting device can control the direction in which heat is radiated, switch that behavior on or off, and retain its configuration even after the power has been turned off. In effect, it allows heat to be programmed in a way that resembles how data is stored and controlled inside a computer chip.

"We made heat radiation behave in a 'smarter' way," Dr. Murai explained. "Achieving these capabilities in a working model could enable a new generation of efficient infrared emitters, thermal-energy devices, sensors, and photonic memory technologies."

Better Performance Than Earlier Designs

The team found that the device responded differently depending on the direction from which light arrived, even when the light struck it almost straight on. Earlier technologies typically required light to hit the material at very steep angles to achieve similar effects, reducing both absorption and radiation efficiency compared with normal incidence.

The new design also addressed other shortcomings of previous systems. Earlier devices produced inconsistent switching between their "on" and "off" states, and they lost their stored configuration once power was removed. In contrast, the new material can reliably switch states while preserving its memory, making it far more practical for future applications.

Toward Programmable Thermal Devices

The researchers see this technology as an important step toward devices that manage heat with the same level of precision that electronic circuits use to control electricity.

"Our ultimate goal is to develop compact devices that can actively control heat radiation, much like electronic circuits control the flow of electricity," Professor Okamoto said. "Such devices could be used in smarter infrared sensors, more efficient energy systems, and new types of photonic memory that store information using light and heat instead of electrical charges." %!s()

This watermarking system, called Content Seal, remains in place "even when cropped, compressed, resized, or screenshotted," Meta explains in a blog post. "We're previewing a detection tool that lets you check whether an image carries a Content Seal watermark, providing an initial way to help you better understand if an image was made with Meta AI."

Content Seal seems to be a somewhat new approach for Meta. The version that's part of Muse Image is proprietary, though the company has previously released open-source versions of the tech, Meta told Engadget. Meta's new models don't include any visible watermarks, like some previous versions of Meta AI that added a small logo to the bottom right corner.

For now, Meta AI's detection abilities are limited to images that are created or edited with Muse Image, though the company said it plans to expand Content Seal watermarks to AI-generated and edited videos as well. Meta is also working on a separate video generation model called Muse Video that will be "coming soon."

I tried out the new detection feature on images I created today with Meta AI and the web-based tool was able to detect a watermark for edited images and entirely AI-made creations (like the one pictured above). It also found the watermark in screenshots of my images. "A positive result means that the image was generated or edited using the Meta AI app or meta.ai," the company explains in an FAQ. "A negative result means it is unlikely that the image was processed using Meta AI app or meta.ai."

Interestingly, Meta AI's new detection abilities don't seem to be part of the Meta AI app yet. When I asked Meta's app-based assistant about an image the web tool had identified as AI-made, it replied that it did not have the ability to check. "I can't tell you definitively if this specific image was made with Meta Al just by looking at it," it said. "Meta Al doesn't automatically watermark images, and I don't have a tool that can detect which Al model made an existing image."

Meta has previously faced some criticism for how it labels and identifies AI-generated material in its apps. The Oversight Board told the company earlier this year that it was "concerned" that Meta was "inconsistently implementing" digital watermarks on AI content created by its own tools.

The new feature does still seem to have some other limitations, though. Content Seal is not compatible with SynthID or C2PA Content Credentials, two established watermarking methods used by other companies. The web-based feature was unable to identify images created or edited with earlier versions of Meta's AI models in my testing. When I added images created in older chats with Meta AI, it was unable to tell me if the image was made with its AI. The feature also appears, for some reason, to be subject to Meta's rate limits. After uploading a handful of examples, I was alerted that I had reached my "daily limit on identification checks." %!s()