It's the newsletter we've all been waiting for: Jennifer Lopez has finally opened up about her and Ben Affleck's dreamy wedding weekend in Georgia.
"This is heaven. Right Here. We're in it now," the singer started in the latest edition of On the JLo. She said the line is one that Affleck wrote for the film Live by Night, which he also directed, and one he said again on the evening of their wedding reception.
In her post, the Marry Me actress said that prior to their wedding, which took place August 19 to 21, she, Affleck, and their close friends and guests caught a stomach bug, and the weather had been rainy and hot every day up to the big weekend in Riceboro.
It "had all the makings of a doozie of a wedding weekend," Lopez said. But, she added, "The truth is, I never had one doubt. All week I felt the calm and easy certainty that we were in God's hands."
The star also shared intimate conversations she had with her now husband, as well as what she felt at every stage of the three-day affair.
At the rehearsal dinner, she said she and Affleck contemplated the roads they both took to get to each other, two decades after they were first set to marry.
"Ben and I laughed the night before about getting married again at our age. We had both been married before and we aren't exactly kids any more but somehow now seemed like the only age that made sense," she wrote. "I had recently read something Rainer [Maria] Rilke wrote in 'Letters to a Young Poet' about love. He said one has to be ready for love. 'For one human to love another is the most difficult task. It is the work for which all other work is merely preparation.' Being able to love someone so that you want to be better for them and make them happy, because giving happiness and love becomes more joyful than receiving it, is true sublime adult love."
On the day of the wedding, Lopez said she surprised Affleck by inviting Marc Cohn to perform "True Companion" as she walked down the aisle. The song, she said, was the one she and Affleck decided was "the perfect wedding love song in this very house more than twenty years ago."
Cohn also sang "The Things We've Handed Down" while Affleck's and Lopez's kids walked down the aisle, with the singer saying that it was meaningful because she and Affleck "weren't only marrying one another; we were marrying these children into a new family. They were the only people we asked to stand up for us in our wedding party. To our great honor and joy, each one did."
She further shared, "As the eldest of our children finished her walk, Marc began 'True Companion,' a song we first listened to together what seemed both like yesterday and forever ago—and life came, strangely, beautifully, mysteriously, divinely full-circle."
Of the moment Affleck saw her walking toward him, Lopez wrote, "Later Ben told me that the chords of the song and seeing Marc Cohn both shocked him and allowed him to feel the way both roads we had walked found their way, inevitably, inexorably, and perfectly together. And when he saw me appear at the top of the stairs that moment it both made absolute sense while seeming still impossibly hard to believe, like the best dream, where all you want is never to awaken. I would have had many of the same thoughts probably had I not been focusing so hard on not tripping over my dress, but when I got close enough to see his face, it made the same wonderful sense to me. Some old wounds were healed that day and the weight of the past finally lifted off our shoulders. Full-circle—and not at all the way we planned it. Better."
Once they said "I do," Mr. and Mrs. Affleck headed to their wedding reception, and Lopez said nothing had ever felt more right.
"The truth is everyone's story is different and we all have our paths to travel. No two people are the same," she wrote. "But for us, this was perfect timing. Nothing ever felt more right to me, and I knew we were finally 'settling down' in a way you can only do when you understand loss and joy and you are battle tested enough to never take the important things for granted or let the silly insignificant nuisances of the day get in the way of embracing every precious moment. We find ourselves in that long-desired time of life: having gratitude for all that life has shown us, even its trials and tribulations. That night really was heaven."
The day after, Lopez said she, Affleck, their family, and their friends gathered for a brunch by the lake on the actor's estate.
"Years ago, we had no idea the road ahead would mean navigating so many labyrinths and hold so many surprises, blessings, and delights. It all culminated in this moment, one of the most perfect of our lives. We couldn't have been happier. I wish all of you the same kind of happiness...the hard-earned kind that's all the sweeter for the journey that came before it," she wrote. "We love you guys ...forever... OnTheJLo 🤍."
Rosa Sanchez is the senior news editor at Harper's Bazaar, working on news as it relates to entertainment, fashion, and culture. Previously, she was a news editor at ABC News and, prior to that, a managing editor of celebrity news at American Media. She has also written features for Rolling Stone, Teen Vogue, Forbes, and The Hollywood Reporter, among other outlets.
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