The controversy around Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's wedding is about more than just the venue.

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck had their second wedding this weekend – and it was a far cry from their "little chapel" ceremony in Vegas. 

For this new occasion, there was a three-day celebration at Affleck's mansion estate on Hampton Island in Georgia. It was a wedding extravaganza, filled with lavish touches, a couture custom gown and chocolate party favours emblazoned with the couple's initials.

There also appeared to be a stringent dress code: a white party theme among the guests. 

When you add on this detail with the history behind the wedding venue, it has left a sour taste in the mouths of some. 

You see, Affleck's longtime Georgia home has been described as "a remarkable re-creation of a Southern antebellum Greek Revival plantation home". Emphasis on 'plantation'.

But there's even more to the story behind their wedding venue – a murky and complex history that Affleck himself has once tried to conceal.

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In 2003, then 31-year-old Affleck decided to purchase the sprawling 87-acre estate in Georgia for US$7.11 million. At the time, Affleck was dating Jennifer Lopez, before the couple split a year later in 2004.

It was reported at the time the two were even planning to build a wedding chapel on the property, but that never came to fruition. The "revival plantation" home consists of three separate structures - the 'Big House', the 'Summer Cottage', and the 'Oyster House'.

The Big House is the main building with the sweeping steps up to the front door, some impressive pillars and four-metre high ceilings – all to the tune of a traditional Southern home. The Summer Cottage is a similar vibe, just on a much smaller scale. And the Oyster House is more informal, with three master suites and five bedrooms featuring bunk beds salvaged from ships and plenty of wooden features.

How is all of this information so readily known you may ask? Well, it's because Affleck put the estate up for sale in 2018 for US$8.9 million and marketed it specifically as a "revival plantation" home – a description that comes with a level of controversy.

Inside Ben Affleck's 'plantation' home where he will marry JLo https://t.co/2IN2JiF7Rl pic.twitter.com/JJqxIjWGwc

— New York Post (@nypost) August 19, 2022

He didn't end up finding the right buyer for the home, and Affleck removed the listing in 2020.

The property and land were once a thriving rice plantation known as "Hampton Pastures" dating back to the pre-Civil War period in America. According to local news company and television station WTOC, a branch of CNN, Hampton Pastures had Black slaves and Native Americans work on the land, owned by Roswell King – an American slave owner, plantation manager and industrialist in the early 18th Century. 

The slave quarters were reportedly located on Hampton Island Georgia, with "an unmarked slave graveyard located somewhere on the property between the main house and the island". 

A revival plantation-style home was then built on top of the former slave-operated plantation in 2000. It later functioned as a holiday home for Affleck and his then-wife Jennifer Garner and their three kids.

For context, here's a bit of history behind plantations. 

In the 1800s in America's deep south, there were over 46,000 plantations in operation – places that provided agricultural prosperity to wealthy white American aristocrats on the back of slave labour and exploitation. The overwhelming majority of slaves were Black people, mostly shipped over from Africa against their will. This ignited the transatlantic slave trade – a global slave trade that transported between ten to 12 million enslaved Africans across to the Americas between the 16th and 19th century.

Today, there are approximately 375 plantation museums across the US, which offer insight into America's history. 

For a long time, these lavish plantations weren't just museums, but also served as incredibly popular wedding venues, given the (objectively) aesthetic look of them.

Celebrities have faced backlash for following similar actions. Actors Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds wed at Boone Hall Plantation in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina in 2012. While at the time the couple didn't think much about marrying on a plantation, they have since regretted the decision.

Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively today. Image: Getty.

"It's something we'll always be deeply and unreservedly sorry for," Reynolds told Fast Company. "It's impossible to reconcile. What we saw at the time was a wedding venue on Pinterest. What we saw after was a place built upon devastating tragedy.

"Years ago we got married again at home – but shame works in weird ways. A giant f**king mistake like that can either cause you to shut down or it can reframe things and move you into action. It doesn't mean you won't f**k up again. But re-patterning and challenging lifelong social conditioning is a job that doesn't end," he said. 

Today, many major wedding-oriented companies have taken steps to distance themselves from these venues, with most plantations now no longer holding weddings. 

In 2019, American wedding-planning sites such as Pinterest, The Knot, and Zola, pledged to stop promoting plantation weddings and using language that romanticises them.

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The change came via campaigning from a racial social justice organisation called Color of Change. Their petition noted: "Plantations are physical reminders of one of the most horrific human rights abuses the world has ever seen. Plantations are former forced labour camps that brutalised and murdered millions of Black people in this country – they are not party spaces." 

It's a history that Affleck knows well.

In 2015, he learned of his family's history associated with slave labour. 

He went on the show Finding Your Roots, where celebrities uncover their ancestral histories. And researchers uncovered that Affleck's great-great-great grandfather, Benjamin Cole, had owned between 25 and 31 slaves at a Georgia farm in the 1850s.

At the time, the episode of Finding Your Roots only focused on Affleck's maternal side, with one close relative a freedom rider during the Civil Rights movement. It was later revealed via leaked emails to the press that Affleck had implored the show to cut the segment where he was told about his family's slave-owning past. 

In the cut-segment, Affleck reacted to the news about his ancestor, saying: "God. It gives me kind of a sagging feeling to see, uh, a biological relationship to that. But, you know, there it is, part of our history." 

At the time, there was public backlash when the leak arose. 

Issuing a statement, Affleck said he had not wanted any TV show about his family to "include a guy who owned slaves".

Ben Affleck. Image: Getty.

"I was embarrassed. The very thought left a bad taste in my mouth," he said.

Affleck also noted that he hadn't had the final say of what was included in the show, and that it wasn't a "news program" but a show "where you voluntarily provide a great deal of information about your family, making you quite vulnerable".

"The assumption is that they will never be dishonest but they will respect your willingness to participate and not look to include things you think would embarrass your family."

His statement continued: "I regret my initial thoughts that the issue of slavery not be included in the story. We deserve neither credit nor blame for our ancestors and the degree of interest in this story suggests that we are, as a nation, still grappling with the terrible legacy of slavery. It is an examination well worth continuing. I am glad that my story, however indirectly, will contribute to that discussion. While I don't like that the guy is an ancestor, I am happy that aspect of our country's history is being talked about."

Six years later, Affleck and his now-wife Jennifer Lopez have been swept into a bigger conversation again, given their choice of wedding venue. 

An expert on slavery said to Page Six she was shocked that Affleck and Lopez decided to go ahead with the venue choice, given the controversy Affleck has faced previously on the subject.

"When he discovered who his ancestors were he tried to squelch it," said Leslie Harris, co-editor of Slavery and Freedom in Savannah and a professor of history at Northwestern University. 

"It's clear he didn't learn his lesson. We're back at the same place with him. People still build houses that are plantation style. It's a sign of wealth. It's surprising that Affleck would choose this place for his wedding when many (historic) plantations have stopped even having weddings."

As Allison Davis, a Black wedding planner in New York City, wrote for A Practical Wedding, now implores her clients not to choose plantations as wedding venues. 

"Would you get married at Auschwitz, and take portraits by the crematorium because the flowers in the field there are so beautiful? In my mind, no amount of peonies, lace, mint julep tin cups, blush bridesmaid gowns, and laughter, can erase the brutal, painful history of the plantation itself."

Lopez and Affleck are yet to publicly comment on the matter.

Feature Image: Getty/Mamamia.