Feeling the love! Jay Shetty was honored to officiate Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s second wedding ceremony — but he had some trouble holding it together.
“The No. 1 thing that was going through my mind was, ‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry.’ Because I’m a full-on crier,’” Shetty, 35, told Variety in an interview published on Wednesday, February 1. “I was just talking myself down. So I had to just pull myself together because … every part of me just wanted to sob full of love.”
Lopez, 53, and Affleck, 50, tied the knot three times in summer 2022 — with their second set of nuptials taking place in Georgia surrounded by their family and friends. Over 150 guests attended the event at the Argo director’s estate including longtime pal Matt Damon. The couple’s children — Max and Emme, 14, whom Lopez shares with ex-husband Marc Anthony, and Violet, 17, Samuel, 14, and Seraphina, 10, whom Affleck shares with ex-wife Jennifer Garner — also joined in on the celebration.
Prior to the August 2022 nuptials, the lovebirds made their union official in a small ceremony in Las Vegas.
“We did it. Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient,” the Selena star wrote in July 2022, just hours after Us Weekly confirmed that the pair had obtained their marriage liscense. “[The wedding was] exactly what we wanted. 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.”
Following the low-key ceremony, an insider told Us that the duo planned to have a bigger party with a larger group of their friends and family, noting that their choice to elope was a long time coming.
“Jen and Ben have talked about eloping for months now and it felt right for them,” the insider told Us at the time. “[They] have both already had big weddings beforehand, so the pageantry isn’t as important to them as it once was.”
Lopez and the Good Will Hunting star were first engaged between 2002 and 2004 before they called it quits. The twosome rekindled their romance in May 2021 following the “Let’s Get Loud” singer’s split from then-fiancé Alex Rodriguez. In April, they revealed that Affleck had proposed for a second time.
“Saturday night while at my favorite place on earth (in the bubble bath), my beautiful love got on one knee and proposed,” she wrote in her newsletter at the time, confirming their engagement. “ was taken totally off guard and just look in his eyes smiling and crying at the same time trying hard to get my head around the fact that after 20 years this was happening all over again, I was quite literally speechless and he said, ‘is that a yes?’ I said, ‘YES of course that’s a YES.’”
While Shetty, for his part, was the officiant for only one of “Bennifer’s” weddings, the former monk is known for helping celebrity couples tie the knot. In September 2021, he helped Lily Collins and husband Charlie McDowell say “I do” at Dunton Hot Springs in Colorado.
“This moment will forever play inside my head,” the groom, 39, captioned an Instagram upload at the time, while Lily commented, “I’m so excited to be your WIFEY ❤️🔥.”
