One of the guests invited to Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s wedding celebration at Madison Square Garden has pushed back against criticism of the couple’s star-studded guest list.
The high-profile American couple reportedly welcomed about 1,000 guests to the landmark New York City venue, which exclusive Daily Mail photos showed had been dramatically transformed for the occasion.
Still, some fans following the festivities from a distance expressed surprise over a few of the names included among those invited by Kelce and Swift.
NFL broadcaster Rich Eisen attended the event with his wife, Suzy Shuster, a respected sportscaster in her own right. Posting a photo of the pair on Instagram, Eisen shared his admiration for the evening.
“Quite the NYC night,” he wrote in the caption. “Storybook doesn’t do the expression of love we witnessed justice.”
While many commenters praised the couple’s wedding-day look, Eisen objected to one remark suggesting Kelce had prioritized celebrity guests over close friends.
Rich Eisen and his wife, Suzy Shuster, were among the guests at Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift’s wedding
Eisen hit back at criticism surrounding the couple’s New York wedding guest list
‘Am I the only one that thinks it’s super weird that outside of Mahomes and Reid, they invited tangential “sports” people like Rich Eisen but less than a handful of Chiefs,’ one comment on Eisen’s post read.
The man himself replied in order to set the record straight, writing: ‘Beyond false. Most Chiefs were there.
‘Both sides of the ball and coaching staff and front office and FORMER teammates of @killatrav (Kelce’s Instagram handle).’
Eisen stating that ‘most’ Chiefs players made it to the big day was intriguing after the Daily Mail reported on Friday that kicker Harrison Butker was not in the Big Apple for teammate Kelce’s wedding.
Butker sparked uproar two years ago when he suggested women should prioritize being stay-at-home mothers over their careers during a commencement speech at Kansas City’s Benedictine College.
Amid the controversy, led by plenty of Swifties, Kelce stood up for his teammate against the cancel culture backlash, describing him as a ‘great person’ – despite admitting he disagreed with almost every opinion he shared in the speech.
‘When it comes down to his views and what he said at the Saint Benedict’s commencement speech, those are his. I can’t say I agree with the majority of it or just about any of it outside of just him loving his family and his kids,’ he said about Butker on his New Heights podcast in May 2024.
‘And I don’t think that I should judge him by his views, especially his religious views, of how to go about life, that’s just not who I am.
Kelce’s Chiefs teammate Harrison Butker was not at the wedding – sources said he was not invited to the big day in New York
‘I grew up in a beautiful upbringing of different social classes, different religions, different races and ethnicities in Cleveland Heights and that’s why I love Cleveland Heights for what it was.’
The three-time Super Bowl champion Butker also appeared to condemn then-President Joe Biden’s pro-abortion stance and the LGBTQ+ community, igniting outrage at the time.
A petition for Butker to be cut by the Chiefs was signed by more than 260,000 people.
As well as the majority of Chiefs stars making Kelce’s big day, he invited plenty of other notable names from across the world of football.
Tom Brady, Matthew Stafford and Mike Vrabel were there, as well as former teammates such as Trent McDuffie and Juju Smith-Schuster.
Kelce and Swift are expected to attend Smith-Schuster’s wedding in Orange County, California next weekend.
