Actor Neil Patrick Harris marries in Italy in unofficial wedding

“Yup, we put the ‘n’ and ‘d’ in husband,” Neil Patrick Harris tweeted on Monday. The “How I Met Your Mother” actor thus announced his marriage after ten years to the love of his life.

Neil Patrick Harris married his ten-year partner, chef David Burtka, on Saturday in Italy, with “How I Met Your Mother” producer Pam Fryman officiating the wedding. Harris and Burtka, despite the wedding and their ten-year partnership, are not considered to have an official marriage in Italy because the country still forbids gay marriages and provides no legal protection for such unions.

Neil Patrick Harris is no stranger to television. The show that started it all for Harris was “Doogie Howser, M.D, where Harris played a genius kid doctor who struggled with his intelligence and commitment to the medical profession while being a son and having a normal childhood/teenage life.

Harris, 41, has also played in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” as well as “Cabaret,” “Proof,” and “Assassins.” Harris’s husband, David Burtka, has also acted in “Gypsy,” “The Play About the Baby,” musical “The Opposite Sex,” and has made appearances in TV shows “Crossing Jordan,” “The West Wing,” as well as “How I Met Your Mother.” Burtka abandoned acting in 2009 to return to school to become a chef. He graduated in 2009 from Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts in Pasadena, California.

Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka are the happy parents of two three-year-old twins, Gideon and Harper. Harris and Burtka are the second couple to marry in Italy (Kim Kardashian and Kanye West were the first celebrity couple to do so this year), but will have actor George Clooney and human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin follow them within the next few weeks.