Jennifer Lopez’s ‘Marry Me’ Wedding Gown Required an Entire Team to Move

Jennifer Lopez returns to her romantic comedy roots this weekend with the release of Marry Me in theaters and on Peacock, and she’s doing it in style. In the film, Lopez plays an international pop star who Is set to marry her equally famous boyfriend (Maluma) on stage at her concert. However, she finds out that he’s cheating right before the ceremony, so she chooses a guy from the crowd (Owen Wilson) who Is holding a “Marry Me” sign to wed Instead. Romantic hijinks ensue. 

Costume designer Caroline Duncan spoke to Variety and revealed that the rose-gold ballgown by Zuhair Murad featured nine layers of silk taffeta, horsehair, and tulle. Not only that, but the wedding dress was so heavy that It required a team to move it. “The dress weighed 95 pounds and required five people to transport it and an entourage to get Jennifer in and out of it, but it gave the dress that volume,” Duncan explained.

That weight wasn’t just literal but also metaphorical. “First, you see her get into the car, and it’s a symbol of how that wedding had gotten too big, and it wasn’t honest and has taken over her ability to see who she was marrying,” said Duncan. “Later, you see her in the bedroom alone on what should have been her wedding night, and here she is trapped in this claustrophobic dress that’s like the concert — bigger than she is. It’s the loneliest shot in the movie.”

Lopez has been candid about the fact that making Marry Me was a very meta experience as her own relationships, particularly her reunion with Ben Affleck, are so deeply scrutinized. “I won’t talk about it a lot,” Lopez warned in a recent interview with Rolling Stone when broaching the subject of her rekindled romance with Affleck. “We’ve both grown. We’re the same, and we’re different. And that’s what’s nice. Yeah… Having a second chance at real love… Yeah. Like I said, we learned a lot. We know what’s real, what’s not real. So it’s just – the game has changed.” Lopez and Affleck originally dated from 2002 to 2004, and the two were even engaged briefly before their breakup.