'This is heaven': Jennifer Lopez shares more photos and details about second wedding with Ben Affleck
"This is heaven. Right here. We're in it now."
That was how Jennifer Lopez described her lavish second wedding with her husband Ben Affleck as she gave fans more intimate details and photos of their special day in her latest "On The JLo" newsletter on Sept. 1.
The couple tied the knot once again at Ben's gorgeous mansion in Georgia on Aug. 20, US Time. This was a month after they had their first spontaneous wedding in Las Vegas on July 16 after rekindling their failed romance in April last year.
At first, the wedding of their dreams didn't start out according to their plans with everyone worried about the heat, the possibility of a downpour because of thunder and lightning strikes during that week, and worries whether they would recover from the stomach flu they had caught.
But Jennifer maintained that she "never had one doubt".
"All week I felt the calm and easy certainty that we were in God’s hands. At six forty-five, Saturday, August twentieth, the sun broke free and cast its rays like little diamonds dancing across the river behind the makeshift altar in our backyard. The sky was clear blue, and distant clouds of pure white held fast in the sky," Jennifer wrote.
As she started her walk down the isle, Marc Cohn was singing his song The Things We’ve Handed Down, something Jennifer described as "the perfect choice" of music as she was preceded by her five children from her and Ben's previous marriages—Jennifer's 14-year-old twins Max and Emme and Ben's three children, Violet, 16, Seraphina, 13, and Samuel, 10.
"We 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 wrote.
As the couple got closer to each other, Jennifer felt that the moment "made absolute sense while seeming still impossibly hard to believe".
"Some old wounds were healed that day and the weight of the past finally lifted off our shoulders," she added.
Perfect timing
The night before the wedding, Jennifer, 53, and Ben, 50, laughed at the thought of tying the knot again at their 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 said.
She realized, however, that every couple's journey in achieving their happily-ever-after is different, and that their rollercoaster of a love story was still in "perfect timing".
"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," Jennifer wrote.
She highlighted, "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."
Jennifer ended her post by wishing her fans the same kind of happiness that she and Ben felt with their rekindled romance.
The couple first met on the set of the 2003 romantic comedy crime film Gigli. Collectively known as "Bennifer", the two got engaged in 2002, but broke up afterwards. However, their failed romance ignited once again almost two decades later.