“Eat, Pray, Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert announced on Tuesday she and her partner Rayya Elias have celebrated their relationship in a “simple and spontaneous ceremony of love.”

Gilbert, 47. notes that the ceremony “was nothing legally binding” but was “just a quiet and private celebration of what we have long known to be true.”

Elias has been battling pancreatic and liver cancer so the union was extra special for the couple.

“More difficult days are to come. It doesn’t get easier from here. Rayya’s illness is grave. But our love is strong. We will walk together as far as we can go together. After that, it all gets turned over to God,” Gilbert writes.

Gilbert came out in September 2016 and revealed she was in a relationship with her longtime best friend Elias. In a Facebook post, she explained how she discovered her feelings for Elias after Elias was diagnosed with cancer.

“Something happened to my heart and mind in the days and weeks following Rayya’s diagnosis. Death — or the prospect of death — has a way of clearing away everything that is not real, and in that space of stark and utter realness, I was faced with this truth: I do not merely love Rayya; I am in love with Rayya,” Gilbert writes

The author announced her split from husband José Nunes, who she met at the end of “Eat, Pray, Love,” last year.