AceShowbiz - Actress Michelle Williams is a married woman after quietly tying the knot with rocker Phil Elverum.

The Brokeback Mountain star exchanged vows with the Mount Eerie singer/songwriter during an intimate ceremony in the Adirondacks in New York earlier this month.

Matilda, Michelle's 12-year-old daughter from her romance with tragic Heath Ledger, and the groom's little girl from his marriage to late wife Genevieve Castree were among the few family and friends in attendance, according to Vanity Fair.

The actress, who is known for closely guarding her privacy, shared the news of her wedding plans in a candid new interview, conducted before the couple became husband and wife, revealing she considers the low-key romance "very sacred and very special".

"I would tell you everything, in the spirit of women sharing with each other," she initially told the reporter, "(but) the Internet's an a**hole."

She subsequently decided to open up a little about her love life in an effort to "take some heat and confusion" out of the situation when it eventually became public, and admitted she "never gave up on love".

Michelle explained she had been searching for the same kind of "radical acceptance" she had experienced with ex-boyfriend Ledger.

"I always say to Matilda, 'Your dad loved me before anybody thought I was talented, or pretty, or had nice clothes...,'" she said.

"Obviously I've never once in my life talked about a relationship, but Phil isn't anyone else. And that's worth something," she continued. "Ultimately the way he loves me is the way I want to live my life on the whole. I work to be free inside of the moment. I parent to let Matilda feel free to be herself, and I am finally loved by someone who makes me feel free."

The actress, who had split from Heath before his accidental drug overdose in 2008, only chose to detail the relationship in the hope of helping others who have also suffered heartbreaking losses.

"I don't really want to talk about any of it," she admitted, "but there's that tease, that lure, that's like, 'What if this helps somebody? What if somebody who has always journeyed in this way, who has struggled as much as I struggled, and looked as much as I looked, finds something that helps them?'"

Michelle Williams told V.F. her relationship with singer-songwriter Phil Elverum is “very sacred and very special.” The two were married in a private ceremony in the Adirondacks. https://t.co/sJGGrNEoxfpic.twitter.com/2IT5VQPNF3

— VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) 26 July 2018

And the advice Michelle wants to share with others is pretty straightforward.

"Don't settle," she said. "Don't settle for something that feels like a prison, or is hard, or hurts you. If it doesn't feel like love, it's not love."

Elverum lost his first wife, musician Castree, to cancer in July 2016.