Taylor Swift is gearing up to plan her wedding to fiancé Travis Kelce, and her star-studded guest list may include British royalty.
A source told Fox News Digital that the 36-year-old pop star wants to invite Prince William and Kate Middleton, both 43, to her nuptials.
“Taylor Swift is one very canny operator — developing her fan base, working incredibly hard writing some of the most popular pop tunes of the last decade, and cementing a good friendship with the future king Prince William over 10 years ago — a relationship that has culminated in private letters, inspirational cards and good wishes to Princess Catherine during her difficult year,” the insider said.
“Now, Taylor is planning the wedding of all weddings, but this is what makes her unique,” the source continued. “She wants to use the wedding not just to say as a celebration of love, but also to thank people who have made the journey to this point along the way and that will include all manner of people from all manner of backgrounds”
Fox News Digital has reached out to representatives for Swift and Buckingham Palace for comment.
During her Oct. 3 appearance on “The Graham Norton Show,” Swift shocked the Irish TV host when she told him that he was invited to her wedding.
“Is next year the wedding year?” Norton asked Swift. “Is that what’s happening?”
“Oh, you’ll know,” Swift replied. “I mean, I was going to invite you to it.”
As the audience laughed and cheered, Swift said that her wedding would be “huge” though she didn’t confirm the wedding date.
“I’m so excited about it,” she added. “I know it’s going to be fun to plan because I think the only stressful weddings are the ones where you have a small amount and people are on the bubble. And you have to evaluate or assess your relationship with them to see if they should be there.”
“I’m not going to do that,” the “Love Story” hitmaker quipped.
Among the wide variety of people who might make the guest list are radio DJs, record promoters, devoted fans-turned-friends, as well as William and Middleton, according to the source.
“The situation is simply this — we saw last year just how well her relationship was with not only Prince William but with his children too,” the insider said.
William and Middleton, who married in April 2011, share sons Prince George, 12, and Prince Louis, 7, and Princess Charlotte, 10.
In June 2024, William celebrated his 42nd birthday by attending Swift’s Eras Tour concert with George and Charlotte at London’s Wembley Stadium.
Middleton, who was undergoing chemotherapy to treat cancer at the time, did not attend and Louis reportedly stayed at home with his mother. In April 2024, Middleton announced that she had been diagnosed with an unspecified form of cancer but confirmed that she was in remission in January.
After Swift’s show at Wembley Stadium, the Prince and Princess of Wales‘ official Instagram account shared a photo of the “Fortnight” singer taking a selfie with William, George and Charlotte backstage.
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“Thank you @taylorswift for a great evening!” the caption read, alongside a photo of Swift taking a selfie with the royal trio.
Shortly after, Swift followed up with her own post on Instagram, sharing a photo of herself posing with Prince William, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Kelce.
“Happy Bday M8! London shows are off to a splendid start,” she captioned the post.
William first met Swift in 2013 at a Centrepoint Gala Dinner that was held at Kensington Palace. The royal later joined Swift and Bon Jovi for a performance of the rock icon’s hit 1986 song “Livin’ on a Prayer.”
During a 2021 episode of Apple Fitness+’s “Time to Walk” series, William shared the story of the viral moment, noting that seeing Bon Jovi and Swift “nearly knocked me off my feet as well.”
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“I’m sat next to Taylor Swift. She’s on my left. And after Jon does his first song, there’s a pause and she turns to me. She puts her hand on my arm, looks me in the eye, and says, ‘Come on, William. Let’s go and sing,'” he recalled.
“To this day, I still do not know what came over me,” William added. “Honestly, even now, I’m cringing at what happened next, and I don’t understand why I gave in. But, frankly, if Taylor Swift looks you in the eye, touches your arm, and says, ‘Come with me…’ I got up like a puppy and went, ‘Yeah, okay, that seems like a great idea. I’ll follow you.'”
Swift also reflected on the encounter during her appearance on Kelce and his brother Travis Kelce’s podcast “New Heights” in August. The 14-time Grammy Award winner remembered that the prince was “a little scared.”
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“He looked at me and said: ‘You have to come with me, you have to come with me,'” she recalled via HOLA! magazine. “And I said, ‘Alright.’ So we went up on stage and started singing ‘Livin’ on a Prayer.’ It felt like I had died.”
During the episode, Kelce also raved about meeting William and his children at Swift’s concert.
“I have to say, Prince William was fantastic, but the best part was Princess Charlotte,” he recalled, via Hola!. “Prince George was great too. It was so adorable.”
“She was a superstar,” he added of Charlotte. “She had fire to her. She was asking questions… I love it when parents ask their kids to be present, be vocal… Encourage them to take a lead in the conversation.”
In an Instagram post on Aug. 26, Swift and Kelce announced their engagement after two years of dating. At the time, the Prince and Princess of Wales’ Instagram account left an official “like” on the post.
According to royal experts, William and Middleton’s attendance at the wedding would be fitting as it would symbolize mutual admiration and help modernize the monarchy’s image among younger audiences.
Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams told Fox News Digital that it would be “totally appropriate” for William and Middleton to accept an invitation to Swift and Kelce’s wedding if one were to be extended.
“Queen Elizabeth famously told Michelle Obama that royal protocol was ‘rubbish,’” Fitzwilliams said of the 2009 exchange between the late monarch and the former First Lady, which Michelle detailed in her 2018 memoir “Becoming.”
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“Much of it is what is considered appropriate by the royals themselves and obviously, as William has recently emphasized, there are periodic changes to royal attitudes,” Fitzwilliams continued.
“A higher profile enables the royals to get their charitable messages across and this would also increase their appeal among the young,” he added. “It would be a genuine mixture of admiration, helping to cement Anglo-American relations especially to a younger generation and, of course, the royals are well aware of the wonderful PR opportunities this would offer.”
Meanwhile, former royal photographer Ian Pelham Turner told Fox News Digital that if William and Middleton were invited to the wedding and decided to attend, their presence would not be motivated by promotional considerations.
“The Royals have often attended as guests at weddings and tend to keep an appreciative but low profile so as not to take away from the happy couple’s big day,” he said.
Turner continued, “They would not see it as a PR opportunity just to be part of a wonderful celebration of marriage, and they would insist to be treated as any other guest with no protocol procedures.”
While security would likely already be tight at Swift and Kelce’s high-profile nuptials, royal commentator Hilary Fordwich noted that the royal couple’s attendance would require additional precautions.
“If they were to attend, security would be heightened, of course, with a mix of police, private security and royal protection officers,” she told Fox News Digital. “There would be extensive risk assessments, an advance team with site checks as well as strict robust guest screening protocols put in place.”
“While royal attendance would be permissible at Taylor Swift’s wedding, it would be subject to extremely careful protocol as well as significant security concerns,” she continued. “Less tangible but just as complex would be the PR ramifications regarding royal brand management and the celebrity-type symbolic meaning royals have tended, historically, to avoid.”
“However, it’s not unprecedented,” Fordwich added. “The Prince and Princess of Wales have on so very many occasions been modernizing the monarchy and are very aware that their future will be shaped and impacted by their ability to appeal to younger demographics.”
If the royals are unable to attend Swift and Kelce’s wedding, the singer would be just as pleased with another gesture from the royal couple, according to U.K. royal correspondent Neil Sean.
“Insiders tell me that Miss Swift would be equally happy with a personalized message from William and Catherine where it could be played out, say at their evening function, wishing her and her man Travis Kelce all the very best for the future,” Sean told Fox News Digital.
Fitzwilliams pointed out that if the wedding were to take place in 2026, the royal couple’s attendance would be a “highly significant” gesture as the United States will celebrate its 250th anniversary next year.
Fitzwilliams agreed with Fordwich’s assessment that if William and Middleton were invited to the couple’s wedding, it wouldn’t be without precedent.
“The Waleses were asked to the Beckham’s wedding in 2022 but were unable to attend,” he noted of the nuptials between Brooklyn Beckham and Nicola Peltz.
“Numerous celebrities have attended royal weddings since Princess Margaret’s in 1960,” Fitzwilliams added. “The only pity is that George, Charlotte and Louis are probably too young to go. Catherine is in remission, and the matter of her health is obviously pivotal to whether she would be able to attend.”
“If she could not, William should go by himself. It would be an event for much rejoicing, a real ‘love story.’”
