With the festivities underway for Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s wedding weekend bonanza, the celebrity arrivals for Thursday’s rehearsal dinner at Madison Square Garden were nearly a covert operation.

The 14-time Grammy winner was said to be among the first to arrive around 4:30 p.m. but she was recognized only by the gray SUV that she was traveling in. Attendees such as Gigi Hadid, Selena Gomez, Bradley Cooper, Lena Dunham and Jack Antonoff and sister Rachel, were photographed en route to the event. Gomez glammed up her strapless black dress with Fernando Jorge’s “Flicker” 18k yellow gold earrings that are set with nearly 2-carat pear-cut diamonds, and a coordinating ring.

Pedestrians lingered in the 100-degree heat of the fading evening sun along Penn Plaza’s West 33^rd Street corridor, enjoying gelato and burning time before their trains departed Penn Station Thursday evening. But that only lasted so long, before dozens of New York Police Department officials ushered people out of the area and set up more steel barricades. That included what had been all-day stakeout by camera crews and members of the media. Some remained in the area, just further back from the Madison Square Garden entrance to wait for the celebrities’ departures.

Many other NYPD officers were stationed along Seventh Avenue in the midst of 12-hour shifts. Swift’s nuptials are one of several major weekend events that require complex logistics and security for New York City officials. The FIFA World Cup, the Macy’s Fourth of July Fireworks, and Saturday’s Parade of Tall Ships on the Hudson River are reeling in tourists and revelers, all during a heat wave in the Northeast.

Several “Swifties” were undeterred, including Ryan Weng, who planned to wait for at least three hours. A few years ago, he spent seven hours standing outside of “The Graham Norton Show” to catch a glimpse of the Eras star. He said that he had recognized the gray Chevrolet SUV that Swift had arrived in. “She’s influenced to me to do everything. I was born in small town in China, and I took the steps to get close to her. Eventually, I moved to New York to be in the same city with her,” Weng said. “Her songwriting has encouraged me for my entire life. It gives me a lot of hope and really empowers me.”

Having just completed a student academic summer program at Brown University in environmental science, Ashley Li wanted to check out the scene before heading to the airport Thursday night to fly home to China. “I think it is amazing that she is going to have her wedding here, and I am now standing right here. It is like a magical connection between me and her,” she said.

Another student, Cooper Chu, who lives in Shanghai and is enrolled at a summer program at the Juilliard School, was keeping watch nearby. Although he is not a Swift fan, he had volunteered to swing by Madison Garden to try to get a photo for his friend, who is one.

Thursday night’s tame setting was quite a contrast from the hundreds of fans. who swarmed outside of the New Jersey restaurant, where Jack Antonoff and Margaret Qualley hosted their rehearsal dinner in 2023, after learning on social media that Swift was there.