Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce Are Engaged: ‘Your English Teacher and Your Gym Teacher Are Getting Married’

The Kansas City Chiefs star popped the question with an “old mine brilliant cut” ring he designed with Kindred Lubeck of Artifex Fine Jewelry

Melody Chiu is an Executive Editorial Director at PEOPLE overseeing Entertainment, Books and Events. With the brand since 2009, she has written cover stories on Taylor Swift, Selena Gomez, John Legend, Sandra Oh, House of Horrors survivor Jordan Turpin and more. Chiu oversees all of PEOPLE’s entertainment verticals, as well as events strategy and live red carpet coverage for awards season. She graduated from the University of Southern California and has appeared on Today, The Talk, Good Morning America and more.

One step closer to “End Game” — Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce are engaged!

The “Cruel Summer” singer and the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, both 35, announced their engagement in a joint post on Instagram alongside several photos from their floral-filled garden proposal on Tuesday, Aug. 26.

“Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married 🧨,” Swift wrote in the caption.

Kelce proposed with a ring he designed with Kindred Lubeck of Artifex Fine Jewelry. The dazzling stone is an “old mine brilliant cut,” which Swift shows off in a series of photos announcing the big news.

The first engagement photo is of Kelce proposing on bended knee as Swift lovingly rests one hand on his face. Other shots show the pair embracing and sitting on a bench underneath pink-and-white floral trellis.

Engagement photo of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce

Kelce and Swift opened up about their relationship on the ‘New Heights’ podcast earlier this month

Earlier this month, Swift made her New Heights podcast debut, which Guinness World Records revealed broke a new world record for “the most concurrent views for a podcast on YouTube” on Aug. 13 with a total of 1.3 million.

Swift not only announced her upcoming 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl, with the help of her now-fiancé and his brother, Jason, on their podcast, but she also opened up about her relationship with Kelce, including hinting that they live together.

“I knew that he wasn’t crazy the first couple of times that we talked. I was just like, he’s truly getting to know me in a way that’s very natural, very pure, very normal,” the “Style” singer said on the podcast, adding that Kelce could make her “laugh so immediately, about normal things.”

The pop star went on to describe the football player as a “vibe booster in everyone’s life that he’s in.”

“He’s like, when you take a picture on your phone and you put the, like you push the enhance color button, that’s what you do to everyone’s life,” she said to Kelce, adding that she appreciated how “non-judgmental” he was about knowing “nothing” about the world he was in.”

Kelce shared last month that he ‘had some adventures this offseason’

In July, Kelce shared a sweet Instagram post that offered a glimpse at special moments in their relationship. “Had some adventures this offseason, kept it 💯,” the NFL player wrote in the caption on July 24.

The post featured several photos of the pair in coordinating looks and spending the off-season together among friends. In one photo, the couple wore matching black looks, and eagle-eyed fans noticed a subtle reveal on Kelce’s phone screen in the corner of the photo, which showed him and Swift as each other’s lock screens.

In another photo, Swift humorously tried on Kelce’s thick-framed black glasses for size, as he grinned while sitting next to her.  The pair also sported coordinating baseball caps, with Kelce’s reading “captain” and Swift’s reading “first mate.”

Engagement photo of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce

Also featured in the post were several photos of the snowy Montana couples getaway the pair embarked on earlier this year – including a photo of the couple laughing as they sport coordinating black and white fluffy hats.

PEOPLE previously confirmed that the pair were spotted spending time at the Yellowstone Club in Big Sky, Mont., alongside mutual friends Erin Andrews and her husband Jarret Stoll.

The couple started dating after Kelce publicly expressed his interest in the pop megastar

The pair’s love story began in July 2023 when Kelce attended Swift’s Eras Tour at Arrowhead Stadium, where he plays football for the Kansas City Chiefs. A few weeks after attending the concert, Kelce revealed that he actually tried — and failed — to meet Swift.

Engagement photo of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce

He also admitted to being “a little butthurt” that he wasn’t able to execute his plan to deliver a personalized bracelet with his number to Swift. “I didn’t get to hand her one of the bracelets I made for her,” he said on his New Heights with Jason and Travis Kelce podcast.

A few months later, Swift and Kelce sparked dating rumors when she made a surprise appearance at his Chiefs game in September 2023, watching from the tight end’s suite alongside his mother Donna. She was even captured cheering as Kelce scored a touchdown, and the two were seen walking out together after the game.

The 14-time Grammy winner revealed for her Time’s 2023 Person of the Year interview that she and the NFL star had begun “hanging out” after he made his revelation on his podcast that he had wanted to meet her.

Engagement photo of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce

“So we actually had a significant amount of time that no one knew, which I’m grateful for, because we got to get to know each other,” she said, clarifying the timeline of their relationship. “By the time I went to that first game, we were a couple. I think some people think that they saw our first date at that game? We would never be psychotic enough to hard launch a first date.”

She also spent time with the football player in New York City, as they were photographed holding hands while walking around the city after making surprise appearances on Saturday Night Live in October 2023. The couple also attended the Chiefs’ holiday party in Kansas City at a holiday pop-up bar that December.

Engagement photo of Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift.Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce

A source told PEOPLE at the end of October that things were “quickly turning more serious” between Swift and Kelce. “They share a strong work ethic and have a huge appreciation for life and their careers, strong family bond and values,” the source said.

The couple began spending more time together than ever, even amid their packed schedules

The singer attended several more Chiefs games that season, including the Chiefs’ 2024 Super Bowl win in February, after which Swift stepped out onto the field and the happy couple shared a celebratory kiss. With the season over, Kelce crossed international borders to see more Eras Tour dates — in Australia and Singapore as well as several in Europe.

At a June concert at London’s Wembley Stadium, the football star even made a surprise appearance onstage, joining the ranks of Swift’s background dancers for a bit of choreography. That weekend, the couple went Instagram official in a selfie with Prince William, Prince George and Princess Charlotte — as well as another post where she said she was “still cracking up/swooning over” Kelce’s onstage moment.

As the couple’s relationship crested toward its one-year mark, Kelce also spoke more about their pairing. “You want to keep things private, but at the same time I’m not here to hide anything,” the athlete said on a June episode of Barstool Sports’ Bussin’ with the Boys podcast. “That’s my girl. You know what I mean? That’s my lady. So it’s like, I’m proud of that.”

On the podcast, he also seemingly confirmed that the song “So High School” — a track off of Swift’s Tortured Poets Department album with the notable line, “You know how to ball, I know Aristotle” — was about his relationship with Swift. After a host suggested that he makes an appearance in the song, the athlete slyly replied, “I think so, I think so, you know what I’m saying.”

Kelce even joined Swift onstage during her sold-out ‘Eras’ tour 

The “Mastermind” singer has worked her boyfriend into her concerts in another fun way. During the final song of her Eras Tour shows, “Karma,” Swift would switch up the lyrics to “Karma is the guy in the Chiefs, coming straight home to me,” shouting out Kelce and his team, which typically had the crowd cheering even louder.

The first time Kelce heard the lyrics dedicated to him at her November 2023 concert in Buenos Aires, he was visibly surprised and excited. She would usually make this change-up when he was in the audience.

As Swift wrapped up her record-breaking Eras Tour in the fall of 2024, Kelce attended his final show in Indianapolis in November. Meanwhile, Swift supported him at his football games in between the final stops she had in North America for her tour, sometimes accompanied by her and Kelce’s parents.

Though Kelce was unable to make it to her final show in Vancouver on Dec. 8, he surprised her days later with an Eras Tour-themed party, complete with friendship bracelets and the iconic “22” hat.