They do — finally! Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck tied the knot in a surprise ceremony in Las Vegas, two decades after their first engagement in 2002.
“We did it. Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient,” the Selena star wrote via her “On The J Lo” newsletter on July 17, 2022, hours after Us Weekly confirmed that she and Affleck tied the knot. “[The wedding was] exactly what we wanted. Last night we flew to Vegas, stood in line for a license with four other couples, all making the same journey to the wedding capital of the world.”
Adding that the pair “barely made it” to The Little White Wedding Chapel before midnight, Lopez married the Oscar winner in an intimate ceremony after they changed into their wedding outfits in the break room.
“So with the best witnesses you could ever imagine, a dress from an old movie and a jacket from Ben’s closet, we read our own vows in the little chapel and gave one another the rings we’ll wear for the rest of our lives,” the “Waiting For Tonight” singer continued. “They even had Bluetooth for a (short) march down the aisle. But in the end it was the best possible wedding we could have imagined. One we dreamed of long ago and one made real (in the eyes of the state, Las Vegas, a pink convertible and one another) at very, very long last.”
She continued: “When love is real, the only thing that matters in marriage is one another and the promise we make to love, care, understand, be patient, loving and good to one another. We had that. And so much more. Best night of our lives.”
Lopez and Affleck, who met on the set of Gigli in early 2002, got engaged for the first time in November of that year. Despite planning to tie the knot in a lavish ceremony in September 2003, the pair called it off just days before the wedding, revealing that the “excessive media attention” had taken a toll on their romance. They called it quits four months later.
“It became a story in and of itself. The funny name, the Jennifer Lopez romance and overexposure of that, it was kind of a perfect storm,” the Good Will Hunting star told Entertainment Weekly in January 2022 about how the attention on his relationship with Lopez overshadowed the film. “If the reaction to Gigli hadn’t happened, I probably wouldn’t have ultimately decided, ‘I don’t really have any other avenue but to direct movies,’ which has turned out to be the real love of my professional life. And I did get to meet Jennifer, the relationship with whom has been really meaningful to me in my life.”
Affleck reconnected with the Maid in Manhattan star in the spring of 2021 following her split from Alex Rodriguez and they were open about their determination to handle things differently this time around. “I think what we learned from the last time is that love, when you are lucky enough to find it, is so sacred and special and you have to hold a little bit of that privately and that’s what we’ve learned,” Lopez said during a February 2022 appearance on Today. “But we’re very happy, if that’s what you wondering about.”
In April 2022, the Argo director proposed for the second time, this time opting for an 8.5-carat green diamond ring. “Saturday night while at my favorite place on earth (in the bubble bath), my beautiful love got on one knee and proposed,” the “Dance Again” singer wrote in her newsletter at the time. “I was taken totally off guard and just looked in his eyes smiling and crying at the same time. [I was] trying hard to get my head around the fact that after 20 years this was happening all over again.”
Six months after the wedding, Lopez opened up about what led to their decision to exchange vows in Vegas, telling Jimmy Kimmel: “We were planning to get married in August in Savannah, the family was going to be there, everyone’s going to be there, and it was so stressful.”
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She admitted during the January 2023 talk show appearance that things “fell apart” when we were supposed to wed in 2004. “And this time, I absolutely had a little PTSD and I was like, ‘Is this happening?’” she continued. “We were so happy, but I just felt the wedding was so stressful. And one day Ben just said, ‘F—k it, let’s just go to Vegas and get married tonight.’”
Keep scrolling to learn more about Lopez and Affleck’s low-key Las Vegas wedding:
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