Jennifer Lopez Marks First Wedding Anniversary with Ben Affleck in a Very JLo Way

She gave a gift to her fans to celebrate along with her.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck on a red carpet
(Image credit: Getty)
Rachel Burchfield
By Rachel Burchfield
published

How has it already been a year since Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s surprise Las Vegas wedding? July 16 marked one year for the Afflecks, and, as one does when you’re JLo, the multihyphenate marked the occasion with a new song, “Midnight Trip to Vegas.”

Yesterday—one day after the anniversary of the couple’s wedding at the Little White Chapel—Lopez teased her new song, writing on Instagram “One year since our Midnight Trip To Vegas…Go to On The JLo for a special surprise…#ThisIsMeNow,” accompanying two snaps of her wearing a white minidress decorated with rhinestones, which she wore on Sunday to an anniversary dinner with her husband at Giorgio Baldi restaurant in Santa Monica.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck on a red carpet

(Image credit: Getty)

Later, in her On the JLo newsletter, Lopez revealed the lyrics to the new song, as well as a clip of her singing. Some of the track’s lyrics include “Then you whispered in my ear / Said let’s get out of here / We can disappear tonight / What about a / Midnight trip to Vegas / Just me and you, baby / Throw the kids in the back / Of the pink Cadillac / And us in the bathroom changing / Midnight trip to Vegas / Both our hearts are racin’ / I’ll pick you up late / We don’t have to wait / Yeah, let’s do something crazy,” which is pretty much exactly what happened in real life on July 16, 2022.

Per People, the new song marks the first glimpse into Lopez’s upcoming album This is Me…Now, the successor to 2002’s This is Me…Then, also inspired by Affleck. 

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck on a red carpet

(Image credit: Getty)

Last year at this time, on July 17, 2022, Lopez revealed she and Affleck—after a 20-year wait—had tied the knot at last: “We did it,” she wrote to her fans in her newsletter. “Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient…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. Behind us, two men held hands and held each other. In front of us, a young couple who made the three-hour drive from Victorville on their daughter’s second birthday—all of us wanting the same thing—for the world to recognize us as partners and to declare our love to the world through the ancient and nearly universal symbol of marriage.”

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck on a red carpet

(Image credit: Getty)

Lopez then paid homage to the pink Cadillac mentioned in her new track: “We barely made it to the little white wedding chapel by midnight. They graciously stayed open late a few minutes, let us take pictures in a pink Cadillac convertible evidently once used by the king himself (but if we wanted Elvis himself to show, that cost extra, and he was in bed),” she wrote. “We read our own vows in the little chapel and gave one another the rings we’ll wear for the rest of our lives. They even had a Bluetooth for the (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 very real (in the eyes of the state, Las Vegas, a pink convertible, and one another) at very, very long last.”

Lopez and Affleck first began dating in July 2002 and were engaged by that November. They postponed their September 2003 wedding just days before the ceremony and reunited in 2021 and became engaged for the second time in April 2022. The July 16 ceremony came about a month before a more formal ceremony which took place on August 20 at Affleck’s home in Georgia. 

Rachel Burchfield
Rachel Burchfield
Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor

Rachel Burchfield is a writer, editor, and podcaster whose primary interests are fashion and beauty, society and culture, and, most especially, the British Royal Family and other royal families around the world. She serves as Marie Claire’s Senior Celebrity and Royals Editor and has also contributed to publications like Allure, Cosmopolitan, Elle, Glamour, Harper’s Bazaar, InStyle, People, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and W, among others. Before taking on her current role with Marie Claire, Rachel served as its Weekend Editor and later Royals Editor. She is the cohost of Podcast Royal, a show that was named a top five royal podcast by The New York Times. A voracious reader and lover of books, Rachel also hosts I’d Rather Be Reading, which spotlights the best current nonfiction books hitting the market and interviews the authors of them. Rachel frequently appears as a media commentator, and she or her work has appeared on outlets like NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, CNN, and more. 

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