Devastating reason Taylor Swift’s godchildren weren’t invited to her wedding: Blake Lively’s most manipulative move yet has sensationally backfired

One thousand guests, but Taylor Swift couldn’t make space at her wedding for four of her godchildren? Ouch. It’s safe to say her friendship with their mother, Blake Lively, appears to be well and truly dead.

As the pop star wed Travis Kelce over the weekend, it was two of Jason and Kylie Kelce’s daughters – Wyatt, six, and Elliotte, four – who reportedly served as flower girls. At two and one, their other children, Bennett and Finley, were presumably too little for the task.

But surely there was a time when Blake and her husband Ryan Reynolds, imagined their own daughters scattering petals at Taylor’s feet, or their son serving as an adorable pageboy.

It’s sad that the children have been caught in the crossfire – collateral damage in a feud not of their making – and you might argue it was cruel of Taylor to punish them for the supposed sins of their parents.

But perhaps Blake should have thought of that when she decided to drag Taylor into that ugly legal battle with Justin Baldoni.

She was, after all, gambling away not only her own decade-long friendship with Taylor, but also the relationship her kids had with their godmother. I don’t blame Taylor for not wanting any toxicity on her big day.

I happen to think it was very telling in the first place, that Blake asked Taylor to be a godmother no less than four times in a row: to James, 11, Inez, nine, Betty, six, and Olin, three.

It feels greedy. Desperate. Manipulative, even.

Personally, I avoided the temptation of asking my wealthiest friends to be godparents to my children. Obviously, the birthday presents would have been excellent, as I’m sure Taylor’s were.

But one longtime acquaintance of mine, who is worth more than one billion dollars, has joked in the past about the deluge of such requests he gets. After that, I would have found it too toe-curling to suggest he be godfather to either of mine when they were born. I most certainly would never have asked him four times.

Blake probably thought she was locking Taylor in for life when she did that.

She was famously accused of weaponizing their friendship in her creative battles with Baldoni during the filming of It Ends With Us, referring to herself as ‘Khaleesi’ from Game of Thrones and Taylor as one of her ‘dragons.’

It’s hard to come back from that. If I were Taylor, I’d be done with that friendship too.

I know a thing or two about estrangement, having fallen out with my best friend of ten years shortly before we both became parents. We’d got to the point where I thought she’d become a negligent, unsupportive friend and she viewed me as overly needy.

Really, we were both at different junctures of our life and neither of us were on our best behavior.

To this day, I doubt I’ll ever get over the loss and it feels strange and wrong that I’ve never met her children – only ever caught a glimpse of them from afar on social media.

We always dreamed of our kids being thick as thieves, like we were. Alas, my olive branch to their mother many years later was never accepted. And I wonder what our children have lost in the end of our friendship.

And what of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle? They have been accused recently of using their kids Archie, seven, and Lilibet, five, as pawns in their feud with other members of the Royal Family.

Indeed, the Duke dangled the possibility of bringing them all to the UK this week, with some critics suggesting that he did so in the hope that his father, King Charles, would be more motivated to welcome them all under Harry’s terms.

Whatever the case, it wasn’t to be. Harry didn’t bring his wife or children, and won’t even be hosted at Buckingham Palace. He hasn’t responded to reports that he took too long to accept an offer of royal accommodation. It’s a mess, as usual, and among those impacted are Archie and Lilibet who hardly know their own grandparents, cousins or aunts and uncles.

Of course sometimes kids are the cause not the victims of a catastrophic breakdown between adults. I very nearly lost a dear friend that way.

I was mortified the first time my toddler met the children of my oldest friend – and spent the morning whacking them and stealing their toys. I’m proud to report we nipped that behavior in the bud and my son, now four, has excellent manners. But at the time, I worried my friend wouldn’t want to come and stay with us ever again.

In turn, I am deeply disdainful when other kids hurt my son, to the point where it absolutely interferes with my view of their parents.

I spent the weekend not long ago with lots of children and one of them repeatedly upset my boy. I promptly rescued him and hissed to him, before I could stop myself, ‘If anyone ever hurts you, I’ll kill them.’

Had the offending child’s mother heard me, she would have been well within her rights to discard me as a friend, having rudely threatened the life of her kin.

But in all seriousness, should grown adults do their best to preserve the peace with their friends and family, where there are children involved – for the sake of the little ones?

Should Taylor have invited her godchildren to the wedding? Should Harry and Meghan mend their many rifts so that Archie and Lilibet can have more relatives in their life? Should my former best friend bury the hatchet with me so that I can realize my dream of our kids growing up together?

In all cases, no.

Blake’s brood weren’t old enough to attend Taylor’s wedding without their parents and there’s no reason why Taylor should forgive Blake if she’s been genuinely wronged.

Harry and Meghan’s disputes are theirs alone and it’s up to them who plays important roles in their kids’ lives.

As for me, I’ll always feel guilty for my part in the demise of that cherished friendship I mentioned. She would have made an excellent godmother, and I know my children would have loved spending time with hers.

But such is life. Our children have to learn one way or another that relationships come and go. And that, as Blake has no doubt realized, bad choices almost always lead to bad blood, for everyone involved.