Beyonce and Jay-Z Baby: A Look at Music's Royal Couple Through the Years [PHOTOS]

Music royalty Beyonce and husband Jay-Z welcomed their first child late Saturday night in a private wing of New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital. The singer gave birth to a baby girl named Blue Ivy Carter.

Excitement has surrounded the child's birth since Beyonce announced she was pregnant in August onstage at MTV's Video Music Awards. I want you to feel the love that's growing inside me. She opened her sparkling blazer to reveal a baby bump, highlighted by high-waisted trousers.

Love is for sure. Beyonce and Jay-Z, whose birth name is Shawn Carter, are one of Hollywood's most high-powered couples. Not only is she a singing sensation and he a hip-hop mogul, but the two have maintained a strong relationship since meeting in the late 1990s. Despite their celebrity, the couple even managed to keep their love under wraps at first.

When they met, Beyonce was part of the girl group Destiny's Child. I was 18 when we first met, 19 when we first started dating, she told Seventeen magazine. I really don't believe that you will love the same thing when you're 20 as you do at 30. So that was my rule: Before the age of 25, I would never get married.

I feel like you have to get to know yourself, know what you want, spend some time by yourself and be proud of who you are before you can share that with someone else, she said.

She and Jay-Z developed their relationship over the years. She collaborated with him on his hit single 03 Bonnie & Clyde in 2002. The song featured lyrics like Cuz mami's a rider, and I'm a roller / Put us together, how they gon' stop both us? / What ever she lacks, I'm right over her shoulder / When I'm off track mami is keepin me focused / So let's, lock this down like it's supposed to be / The '03 Bonnie and Clyde, Hov' and B.

Despite the fact that neither had yet confirmed the relationship, their chemistry was palpable. So it was an obvious choice to feature Jay-Z on her single Crazy in Love from her 2003 album Dangerously in Love. The song spent eight weeks at number one. We exchanged audiences. Her records are huge Top 40 records, and she helped 'Bonnie and Clyde' go to number one. What I gave her was a street credibility, said the hip-hop mogul.

The couple began to appear in public more and more, especially at basketball games. But Beyonce insisted that the coming out was not a calculated move. We never really consciously talk about anything. Even when we do records, I've never sat down and said, 'hey, let's try to do a song, she said. It's just natural. We never said 'OK, now we're going to go to games.' We just live our lives.

On April 4, 2008, Beyonce wed Jay-Z in an intimate ceremony in New York City. A tent was reportedly erected in his newly renovated Manhattan penthouse and 70,000 white orchids decorated the setting. In attendance were the singer's parents, Tina and Mathew Knowles, Destiny's Child ladies Kelly Rowland and Michelle Williams, and the couple's close friend Gwyneth Paltrow.

The Houston-born singer sported an 18-carat diamond ring designed by Lorraine Schwartz with an estimated value of $5 million.

Now, the couple have extended their family with the welcome of baby Blue Ivy Carter.

I feel it's still very strong, because in order to be a strong woman, you have to have a strong man, Beyonce has said. There's nothing wrong with women doing that for their man if their man deserves it and he does the same for you.

Take a look at Beyonce and Jay-Z's relationship through the years.