On the 25th (!) Wedding Anniversary of Days of Our Lives’ ‘Jarlena,’ Deidre Hall Teases, ‘There’s Something Else Going On There’

July 6, 1999 wasn’t technically the first time that the supercouple tied the knot. But it was the first time that they did so knowing to whom they were reciting their vows.

“If it first you don’t succeed, try, try again” doesn’t really apply to marriage-minded Days of Our Lives duo John Black and Marlena Evans. Their first marriage, begun back in 1986, was a roaring success.

There was just one problem: When they entered into it, she believed that she was taking as her husband her “late” love, Roman Brady.

Well, that and she herself would soon “die” in air quotes.

But by 1999, John and Marlena were ready to “I do” it for real. By then, they knew that Roman was alive and well — oh, and it goes without saying that John wasn’t him. He’d lost wife Isabella.

Marlena had tried and failed to fight her feelings for John, even after reuniting with Roman. The exes had even gone through hell to rid Marlena of the demon that had taken possession of her heavenly body, and banished she-devil Kristen DiMera from their lives.

Well, as best anybody can; like a bad penny, she always comes back.

“Oh, honey,” sighed John, beaming at his radiant bride, “we are meant to be together, and I’m so happy that we are.”

So are their legion of fans. And at this point, the soap legends who bring them to life figure that nothing can tear them apart. “The only thing that could,” Drake Hogestyn reckoned to Soaps.com in 2023, “is if something were to happen that they didn’t have control over, that was outside of them.”

And such a turn of events could yet come to pass; it’s all up to the writers. “In acting class, for years, they would give you information about how to make a performance that isn’t on the page on the page,” Deidre Hall told us. “One of the ways is to always have a secret. Nobody needs to know what it is. [It’s just a matter of] there’s something else going on there.”

Something, she added, that leaves the audience asking, “‘What is that?’ It’s an acting tool, but it’s always, always interesting.”

While we wait to see what secrets John and Marlena may yet have up their sleeves, take a stroll down the aisle — and, at the same time, Memory Lane — to revisit not just their 1999 nuptials but all of John and Marlena’s “I dos” in one massive photo album.