Reminiscing on their love! Ahead of her wedding to Ben Affleck, Jennifer Lopez offered a glimpse at how she got ready in her home — which included a special look at the mementos she has of their romance through the years.
In an Instagram video shared by her hairstylist Chris Appleton on Sunday, July 17, Lopez, 52, appears to be getting ready in her own bathroom. In the background, a framed photo shows side-by-side photos of Lopez and Affleck, 49, at the Venice Film Festival in September 2021 and a red carpet moment from their first courtship.
“I feel amazing. I am so excited. 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,” the singer said in the clip about her thoughts on the big day.
The couple were first linked after meeting on set of Gigli and were originally engaged from 2002 to 2004. At the time, the actress admitted that she wasn’t sure when their connection became something serious. “You can’t pinpoint it,” she told Dateline’s Pat O’Brien in November 2004. “We became friends first. That is the honest to God truth.”
Four months after calling off their initial wedding, the duo decided to pull the plug on their relationship. Following the split, Lopez referred to it as her “first real heartbreak” in her book, True Love. “It felt like my heart had been torn out of my chest,” she wrote in the 2014 novel. “I sought out comfort in another person, tried to find someone who could make me feel loved and wanted in my loneliest hours.”
Lopez went on to marry Marc Anthony and the exes were together from 2004 to 2011. They share twins Emme and Max, now 14. Affleck, for his part, moved on with Jennifer Garner and they finalized their divorce in October 2018 after 10 years of marriage. They are parents to three children, Violet, 16, Seraphina, 13, and Samuel, 10.
In April 2021, Lopez and Affleck made headlines when they were spotted spending time together shortly after her split from fiancé Alex Rodriguez. One month later, Us Weekly confirmed that they were “full-on dating and very happy together.”
Earlier this year, the New York native announced that Affleck had popped the question again. “Saturday night while at my favorite place on earth (in the bubble bath), my beautiful love got on one knee and proposed,” she wrote in her “On the JLo” newsletter in April. “I was taken totally off guard and just looked in his eyes smiling and crying at the same time.”
After a three-month engagement, Lopez and Affleck obtained a marriage license in Clark County, Nevada, on Saturday, July 16, and tied the knot in a Las Vegas chapel.
“We did it. Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient,” the Hustlers star wrote in her newsletter on Sunday. “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.”
The bride, who wore two different dresses on her special day, noted that the wedding chapel allowed her to change in “the break room” while her now-husband “changed in the men’s room.” “We barely made it to the little white wedding chapel by midnight. They graciously stayed open late a few minutes,” she explained about the “best night” of the pair’s life.
According to a source, Lopez and Affleck wanted a “fun and casual” wedding ceremony. “They both are so comfortable with each other and make each other so happy, so they don’t want to wait any longer,” the insider revealed.
