Following Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s wedding over the weekend, a vintage clip of the Marry Me actress — who is now officially Jennifer Affleck — in which she reveals plans to change her name to that during their first engagement, has resurfaced.
In the 2003 footage, when Access Hollywood’s Pat O’Brien asks Lopez what her name will be a week after her then-planned wedding, she doesn’t hesitate.
“Jennifer Lopez,” she says, confirming that she planned to keep her name professionally. “But my name will be Jennifer Affleck, obviously.”
The new moniker would also be on her personal stationery, she said.
Still, she joked, “J. Aff… doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”
The couple nicknamed Bennifer famously ended up postponing their wedding back then because of “excessive media attention,” before calling it off altogether in 2004.
They, of course, reunited last year and announced in April that they were engaged for the second time.
Following their ceremony Saturday at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Lopez shared an announcement in the latest edition of her On the JLo newsletter, which she signed “Mrs. Jennifer Lynn Affleck.”
Their marriage license, listed on the Clark County Clerk’s Office website, confirms that her new name is “Jennifer Affleck.”
In the same note, she gave details about the nuptials, including the fact that her kids — Max and Emme, the 14-year-old twins she shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony — were there to watch as she and the Argo director and star exchanged vows.
“We barely made it to the little white wedding chapel by midnight,” she wrote. “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).”
Lopez was ecstatic about the no-frills ceremony.
“They were right when they said, ‘all you need is love,’ We are so grateful to have that in abundance, a new wonderful family of five amazing children and a life that we have never had more reason to look forward to,” she wrote, referring to Affleck’s three children — 16-year-old Violet, 13-year-old Seraphina and Samuel, 10 — with ex-wife Jennifer Garner.
“Stick around long enough and maybe you’ll find the best moment of your life in a drive-through in Las Vegas at 12:30 in the morning in the Tunnel of Love drive-through, with your kids and the one you’ll spend forever with. Love is a great thing, maybe the best of things-and worth waiting for.” ♦
