Jennifer Lopez reveals Ben Affleck quoted his own movie during wedding speech: 'This is heaven'
Ben Affleck took a page out of his own book during his wedding to Jennifer Lopez.
In her On the JLo newsletter Thursday, Lopez shared intimate details and photos from their Georgia nuptials on Sept. 20, including that Affleck quoted one of his own movies during his reception speech.
"'This is heaven. Right here. We're in it now.' That is one of my favorite lines that Ben wrote from a movie he directed called Live By Night," Lopez revealed. "He also said it the night of our wedding reception in his speech, and I thought...how perfect." Affleck wrote, directed, produced, and starred in the 2016 film based on Dennis Lehane's 2012 novel of the same name about a notorious gangster.
The singer-actress also noted that "all of us caught a stomach bug and were recuperating 'til late in the week" and "it had rained at sunset every day that week ... at the exact time the ceremony was supposed to start that Saturday," making it "a doozie of a wedding weekend." But she "never had one doubt," and ended up enjoying a beautiful, rain-free ceremony at sunset. She described the wedding "vibes" as "down-home, rustic country-chic."
onthejlo.com Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck on their wedding day
Lopez, 53, surprised Affleck, 50, during the ceremony with Marc Cohn singing live, as they previously discussed "in this very house more than twenty years ago" that his song "True Companion" was "the perfect wedding love song." While Affleck later told her he was moved by the performance, she had other things on her mind.
"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," she wrote. "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."
Lopez went on to reveal that she and Affleck had "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 ... The truth is everyone's story is different and we all have our paths to travel. No two people are the same. 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."
She added, "That night really was heaven... 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."
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