Neil Patrick Harris and David Burtka’s Serendipitous Love Story

Neil Patrick Harris and husband David Burtka are fairly actually two peas in a pod. “We now have the identical shoe measurement, physique measurement, peak and weight,” Harris informed Out journal in 2012, including that they share a wardrobe. “We’re each Gemini. We each like the thought of household — not a nuclear household, however a social household.”

However simply as a lot as they’re comparable, they’re additionally fairly reverse in how they function. Harris defined he’s “very introspective — thinker, somewhat than the doer. I are inclined to weigh choices earlier than making selections, and David is the polar reverse of that.”

It’s each their commonalities and variations which have made Harris (finest identified for his stints on TV exhibits Doogie Howser, M.D. and How I Met Your Mom and as a four-time Tonys host) and Burtka (a cookbook creator, chef and actor) such an ideal match — and a secure Hollywood couple, who went on their first date on April Idiot’s Day of 2004.

Commemorating event in 2021, they swapped Instagram posts, with Harris calling Burtka “my high precedence, my fixed inspiration, my child daddy, and my finest good friend,” and Burtka returning the love with, “You’ve gotten given me the life I’ve dreamed of. I’m continually amazed at your parenting expertise, how exhausting you’re employed to offer for our household, how a lot we nonetheless giggle, that we haven’t misplaced ‘it’ within the romantic division and most significantly that we’re nonetheless head over heels in love.”

However the couple, who at the moment are mother and father to fraternal twins, daughter Harper Grace and son Gideon Scott, would have by no means met if it weren’t for an opportunity encounter on the streets of New York Metropolis.

Burtka was in a relationship after they met

Regardless of having been billed a teen heartthrob, gracing the covers of juvenile magazines within the ’90s, Harris didn’t all the time really feel fortunate in love. “I keep in mind being in my mid-twenties, mendacity in mattress considering, I’ve by no means taken a bathe with anybody earlier than; I’ve by no means had any type of long-term relationship. I keep in mind considering that the remainder of my life could be solo,” he admitted to Out. “I wasn’t weepy after I thought that — it was only a realization that I had gone this lengthy being self-sufficient.” In truth, he was extra than simply adequate. Harris had been incomes ardent reward because the Grasp of Ceremony in Sam Mendes’ model of Cabaret on Broadway in 2003.

Throughout that point, he bumped into his good friend Kate on the road, who occurred to be with Burtka (who was coincidentally in one other Mendes manufacturing on the time, Gypsy). Harris assumed he was Kate’s boyfriend, remembering Burtka as a “brooding, James Dean–kind man in a leather-based jacket who gave me the pinnacle nod after which turned away,” Harris stated. In spite of everything, Burtka was already in a long-distance relationship.

They first frolicked at an ‘American Idol’ occasion

Harris was respectful but in addition didn’t need to surrender hope. “I didn’t need to be that man who was creating some type of romantic interference,” he informed Out. “So I used to be all the time round when he was round, hoping the celebrities would align.”

Their first actual hangout was when Kate invited him to an American Idol viewing occasion. “I simply stammered round him,” Harris remembers. “I couldn’t take my eyes off him.”

They finally began hanging out as buddies. “I believed he was cute…with these superb blue eyes which are simply hypnotizing to me,” Burtka stated. Ultimately he broke up along with his boyfriend and he and Harris went on their first date the next week to the films to see Angelina Jolie’s Taking Lives.

One important matter that got here up on that first date: youngsters. “If he hadn’t needed youngsters, I don’t assume we’d be collectively,” Burtka added. “I all the time thought that household was an important factor in life, and it doesn’t matter what I do, whether or not being a chef or an actor or a dancer, being a dad is what I do finest.”

They moved in collectively simply months after they began relationship

From that first date, the 2 began seeing extra of each other. “We began hanging out each single night time, and after three months, it was simply continuous,” Burtka remembered, with Harris including, “As soon as we began speaking, we by no means stopped.”

They quickly moved in collectively, just because it appeared handy. “We thought if we have been each going to be paying $5,000 a month to make use of another person’s sheets and towels, we would as effectively do it collectively,” Harris informed the publication of the shifting right into a “roomy and fairly priced” place in Harlem {that a} girl had lived in for greater than 4 a long time.

Heading again to L.A. to pack up, their cross-country drive to their new dwelling in New York Metropolis symbolized the merging of their lives. They began by loading up the shifting truck with the muse of every of their lives they’d in storage, earlier than stopping in Harris’ hometown of Albuquerque to select up some issues after which to Michigan, the place Burtka’s household is, to get his household’s piano. “We went slowly throughout America, filling up this truck, and by the point we obtained to New York, we had a brand new life stuffed with furnishings,” Harris stated.

They’re trustworthy about their ups and downs

With that new life additionally got here a brand new stage of belief between one another — which included full openness, even when it wasn’t the simple method to go. “I initially fell for David more durable than he fell for me,” Harris admitted. “I keep in mind saying, ‘I feel I like you,’ and he was like, ‘That’s very nice,’ which isn’t essentially what you need to hear. However I appreciated his honesty in not leaping the gun and saying one thing as a result of he felt obliged to.”

Burtka says that the primary three years have been like a “honeymoon interval” after which they finally settled right into a vibe. “It turns into extra snug, but it surely turns into a necessity — one thing you possibly can’t surrender, like an addict,” he stated.

And like every couple, they’ve their disagreements. “Our fights final 5 minutes, then we’re over it,” Burtka stated. “[Since] we’re each Gemini — we now have an excellent twin and a nasty twin, and the 4 of us get alongside rather well!”

Burtka proposed on the road nook they met adopted by a proposal by Harris on Valentine’s Day

Someday a couple of years into their relationship, the 2 have been on their method to an occasion outdoors of New York Metropolis in a limo, when Burtka insisted on stopping. It turned out they have been on the avenue nook the place they’d their first probability encounter. “He obtained on one knee and proposed, and I used to be so freaked out by it that I stated, ‘Sure,’ however I didn’t know what it meant,” Harris stated. “Then I obtained the ring and cherished it, and a 12 months later, on Valentine’s Day, I proposed to him in Santa Monica.”

On the time, homosexual marriage hadn’t been legalized in New York, however they didn’t let that maintain again their plans to start out a household. “We each agreed that if we needed to have youngsters, we didn’t need to do it tremendous late within the recreation,” Harris stated. “We needed our mother and father to benefit from the course of and to be younger and vibrant sufficient to throw a ball with them, or to chase them round with out utilizing a walker.” On October 12, 2010, that dream got here true, as they welcomed Gideon and Harper by way of surrogate.

The pair obtained married in Italy in September 2014

Because the household continued to develop, with each mother and father sharing updates on their social media, June 2011 grew to become a historic time. “It PASSED! Marriage equality in NY!! Sure!! Progress!! Thanks everybody who labored so exhausting on this!! A historic night time!” Harris tweeted. The subsequent day, he obtained extra private, tweeting: “David and I did suggest to one another, however over 5 years in the past! We have been sporting engagement rings for ages, ready for an obtainable date.”

Whereas elevating their youngsters undoubtedly stored their fingers full, it wasn’t till three years later, on September 6, 2014, that the couple of 10 years lastly obtained married in a small ceremony in Italy with simply 45 company, together with Kelly Ripa and Elton John, who additionally carried out on the reception.

The ceremony was officiated by How I Met Your Mom director and producer Pam Fryman as the lads each wore customized Tom Ford tuxedos, Folks reported. Fireworks and magic have been a part of the festivities that have been held at a citadel, Ripa shared on her present. She additionally revealed that each of the Butka-Harris youngsters had important roles, with Gideon — who wore a high hat and tux — getting into the place of “orange boy” who handed out oranges as he walked down the aisle.

Harris says the key to their relationship is ‘perseverance’

These days, the couple continues to boost their household collectively, not shy to have their youngsters seem in holiday-themed Instagram posts and even alongside them in commercials. In spite of everything, they’re all about giving Harper and Gideon as many experiences as they will.

“I really feel like our life is only a bunch of clean pages in a giant guide and we’re attempting to fill them up as finest we are able to, so I hope will probably be an excellent learn,” Harris informed Dad and mom. And so they proceed to work by way of the challenges collectively. “The key to a relationship is simply perseverance, you recognize?” he informed Leisure Tonight. “It is not all the time fairly…however he is fairly, so it makes it straightforward.”

However greater than something, it’s about persevering with to intertwine their lives in each approach. “We speak on the telephone not less than eight occasions a day and textual content not less than 25 occasions a day,” Burtka informed Out. “We’re, in a approach, very codependent. He’s my lifeline, in an incredible approach. With out him, I can’t breathe.”