Jennifer Lopez has proudly showed off her new wedding ring after tying the knot with Ben Affleck in Las Vegas
(Picture: Jennifer Lopez / Instagram)"Love is beautiful. Love is kind,” wrote Jennifer Lopez in her On the JLo newsletter, announcing that she had wed Ben Affleck in an intimate ceremony on Saturday. “And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient," she added as a nod to their ill-fated 2002 engagement back.
Noughties power couple “Bennifer” have finally tied the knot 20 years after the pair called off their first engagement due to “excessive media attention.” Despite ending their relationship soon after – within a year, they were married to Jennifer Garner and Marc Anthony, respectively – last year they broke the internet with a series of deja vu-inducing paparazzi pics of the duo loved up once more. Now with their adorable Little Chapel wedding, they’ve finally got their happy ending in an epic Hollywood love story.
The couple first met in 2001 on the set of their movie “Gigli” while Lopez was still married to her second husband Cris Judd. Despite the film tanking at the box office, the couple’s off-screen chemistry wound up a hit.
Over less than two years, from 2002 to 2004, their glamorous romance fueled early-tabloid culture, made pop culture history with the unforgettable music video for “Jenny from the Block”, set the standard for celebrity portmanteau names, then fizzled out faster than it began.
Fast forward two decades and their romance 2.0 began shortly after Affleck praised Lopez in a cover story featuring quotes from her friends, colleagues, and A-list admirers. “I thought I had a good work ethic, but I was completely humbled and blown away by what [Lopez] was committed to doing day in and day out, the seriousness in which she took her work, the quiet and dedicated way she went about accomplishing her goals, and then how she would go back and redouble her efforts,” Affleck told InStyle in April 2021.
The two were spotted spending time together in LA and Montana following Lopez’s split from Alex Rodriguez, before making it Instagram official on July 2 2021 in a photo dump from the star’s 52nd birthday. Grouped in the mix of bikini and boat pictures, the final photo in the roundup showed Lopez and Affleck kissing, which sent fans into hysteria.
In an interview with People back in Feburary, the On the Floor singer gushed over Affleck and the maturity of the second iteration of her relationship with The Last Duel actor. “We’re older now, we’re smarter, we have more experience, we’re at different places in our lives, we have kids now, and we have to be very conscious of those things.” Two months later they were engaged.
The pop star signed off her personal letter "with love, Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck.” Confirming that she had also taken her beau’s last name.
So, in honour of Mr and Mrs Affleck, here’s everything you need to know about their charming wedding.
The venue
The twice-engaged couple got married late-night Saturday at the A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada. It might not have been the OTT, decadent ceremony fans would expect from the two, but it was “the best possible wedding we could have imagined,” said the new Mrs Affleck. After all, this is a location that has seen the likes of Michael Jordan, Joe Jonas, Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker, Pamela Anderson, Britney Spears and Joan Collins all say “I do”.
In her newsletter she revealed that they, "stood in line for a license with four other couples, all making the same journey to the wedding capital of the world," Lopez continued. "Behind us two men held hands and held each other. In front of us, a young couple who made the three hour drive from Victorville on their daughter’s second birthday — all of us wanting the same thing — for the world to recognize us as partners and to declare our love to the world through the ancient and nearly universal symbol of marriage."
Lopez adds they "barely made" it to the wedding chapel by midnight, but that they "graciously" stayed open late and let the couple "take pictures in a pink Cadillac convertible, evidently once used by the king himself (but if we wanted Elvis himself to show, that cost extra and he was in bed)."
The dress
With an engagement ring that reportedly cost $5-10million, many were expecting J Lo’s dress to be equally outlandish. However, as per her newsletter, the singer opted for two low-key numbers straight from her closet.
The first dress was something old; a simple, boatneck white cotton maxi dress with nipped waist and full skirt. "I’ve had this dress for so many years, and I’ve just been saving it, saving it, saving it, and now I’m wearing it on my wedding day," Lopez, 52, says in a clip posted on Instagram by her hairstylist Chris Appleton.
Lopez then changed into a glamorous lace Zuhair Murad bridal gown to exchange her “I Dos”. The pop star wore a similar dress in her recent film Marry Me (how fitting) and has previously turned to the Lebanese designer for red-carpet looks.
Affleck meanwhile looked suave in a white tuxedo jacket he had also pulled from his closet and changed into in the men’s loo. JLo also shared a morning-after, makeup-free snap to her Instagram on Sunday, with her elegant wedding band on full display.
The guestlist
The nuptials were ‘super small’ and attended by Jennifer’s children and mother, according to People. It’s a far cry from the 400 guests that were meant to attend wedding 1.0, but considering they contemplated hiring ‘decoy brides’ at three different locations to get the paparazzi off their scent, understandably they wanted to keep it low-key this time around.
JLo has two children with former partner Marc Anthony. She gave birth to her twins Emme Maribel Muniz and Maximilian David Muniz on February 22, 2008, in Long Island. Both of whom attended the wedding, with Lopez sharing a photo of Emme in the backseat of a pink Cadillac in her newsletter.
Although they were not present at the wedding, the Goodwill Hunting actor also has three children with his ex-wife Jennifer Garner – Violet, Seraphina, and Samuel.
