BEYONCE SPEAKS ABOUT HER MARRIAGE TO JAY-Z IN ESSENCE......

Those all-important quotes have finally arrived from Essence magazine. For the first time EVER in Beyonce's 7-year relationship with Jay-Z, she *FINALLY* talks about her marriage to Jay-Z, why she didn't opt for the traditional wedding bands and why she's been so secretive about their relationship. It's all inside this post. And here are some pictures from her Essence photoshoot:

It's kinda funny she's finally opening up now that her music is out and she's got a new album to promote. The timing is just suspect. Why blow your cover just because you have an album to promote? If you have an album to promote, why not keep the two seperate? Still, I'm not mad at her at all. The interview is really insightful and helps to understand her paranoia about pimping her relationship to the media. Well, I think that's all the Beyonce we're going to get for today. Talk about a REAL promotional blitz. Read the quotes after the jump.

Beyonce on her wedding to rapper Jay-Z:

Beyoncé tells the magazine that the wedding was very small and intimate, because she’s not a “traditional” woman and having it be “her day” wasn’t something she needed. Being a star and walking the red carpet has diminished the need for that over the years. “It’s been my day so many days already,” she told the magazine.

She didn’t want an engagement ring because “people put too much emphasis on that. It’s just material, and it’s just silly to me,” she said.

Instead of just getting wedding rings, the couple also got matching tattoos of the Roman numeral four on their ring fingers, so if they take off the bands for work or to go swimming, a mark of some form is still there. (The number four is special to the couple because her birthday is September 4, his birthday is December 4, and their wedding anniversary is April 4.)

Beyonce on why she's been so private about her personal life:

"I feel that, especially now, with the Internet and paparazzi and camera phones, it's so difficult to maintain mystery," she told the magazine. "And that's so important. Even in a relationship, I feel like not being that accessible is really important. If you think about Prince or Michael Jackson, or any superstars, you couldn't see them when they got off their planes or when they got out of the pool and didn't comb their hair. It's great that people see we're not perfect. But it's almost impossible to have superstars now, because people will never get enough. And it's not even about my music. It's about all the things that people imagine about me in their minds. But I can't satisfy everyone. I know that Jay and I probably do inspire people. And I appreciate people feeling proud. But this is the only way I've been able to stay sane, so why would I start talking now?

"[Not speaking] controls your brand," she continued. "It controls what you want to put out there and kind of forces people to talk about what you want them to talk about."

But then Beyoncé lets it slip that it was a joint decision with her husband to keep quiet. "We decide everything," she told the magazine. "My word is my word. What Jay and I have is real. It's not about interviews or getting the right photo op. It's real."