Resurfaced video shows Jennifer Lopez suggested Las Vegas wedding during first engagement to Ben Affleck

It turns out that the destination of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s recent wedding may not have been an entirely spontaneous choic after all.

A resurfaced video reveals that the singer considered a Las Vegas wedding way back when the couple was first engaged in the early 2000s.

On Tuesday, the official MTV Instagram account shared the resurfaced clip from Lopez’s appearance on TRL in 2002 when she was engaged to Affleck the first time. In the clip, host Carson Daly asked the Marry Me star about the couple’s wedding plans and Lopez joked that she and Affleck would get married in “Vegas”.

“How are you guys gonna do, like, a wedding? Like, how are you even going to try - is there a deserted enough island?” Daly asked in regards to the logistics of keeping the high-profile wedding private. The question prompted Lopez to admit that she “didn’t know,” at which point the TRL host suggested the couple tie the knot in a plane.

Lopez laughingly suggested: “Vegas!”

While she did not seem to be serious, she did add that wherever the couple decided to get married would incorporate her and Affleck’s family members.

“I don’t know what we’re gonna do, but whatever it is, if we don’t invite… if our families are not there, we’ll both be in a lot of trouble,” she said.

Lopez and Affleck, who announced over the weekend that they had exchanged vows at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas, Nevada, were first engaged in the early aughts. A day before their 2003 wedding, the couple announced they would be postponing the nuptials due to “excessive media attention.” The couple ultimately ended their relationship a few months later, in January 2004.

Famously, the singer and Deep Water star rekindled their relationship in May 2021 and were engaged again in April 2022.

Lopez confirmed that she and Affleck tied the knot via her “On the JLo” newsletter.

“We did it. Love is beautiful. Love is kind. And it turns out love is patient. Twenty years patient. Exactly what we wanted. Last night we flew to Vegas, stood in line for a licence with four other couples, all making the same journey to the wedding capital of the world,” she wrote to fans.

“We read our own vows in the little chapel and gave one another the rings we’ll wear for the rest of our lives.”

In the newsletter, Lopez also revealed that both her and Affleck’s children were present at the wedding. The singer shares 14-year-old twins Emme and Max with ex-husband Marc Anthony, while Affleck shares daughters Violet, 16, Seraphina, 13, and son Samuel, 10, with ex-wife Jennifer Garner.

She added that she and Affleck “barely made it” to the chapel for their impromptu wedding, but that A Little White wedding Chapel “graciously stayed open late a few minutes and let us take pictures in a pink Cadillac convertible”.

For the occasion, Lopez wore two wedding dresses including a sleeveless white Alexander McQueen dress “from an old movie” and a Zuhair Murad off-the-shoulder gown. Affleck wore a jacket from his closet and “changed in the men’s room” of the chapel.

While the pair are officially married, the Las Vegas nuptials may not be their only wedding celebration, as a source told E! News that the couple “have a bigger official ceremony planned but wanted this moment for their immediate family”.