According to news stories, ( Now Trending: Legendary! Neil Patrick Harris marries longtime partner in Italy - The Globe and Mail ) actor Neil Patrick Harris married his long-time boyfriend David Burtka in Italy over the weekend. Did I miss something? When did Italy join the list of countries with same-sex marriage?
They are legally married in New York. There’s no law against having a fancy party in Italy.
I’m guessing, though can’t find anything that mentions it, that they did the legal portion elsewhere but had the ceremony in Italy.
Exactly.
The legal paperwork finalizing a union does not have to go along with the ceremony or the party celebrating that union. They either did the paperwork beforehand in NY (or somewhere else) and then had the ceremonial bits afterwards, or did the ceremony and party and then signed the official paperwork once they were back home.
Just because the papers are USUALLY signed during the ceremony doesn’t mean they have to be.
I can’t find anything either. I wish the news stories would be more accurate. They all make it sound as if the marriage took place in Italy.
I understand your point. But it is simply wrong to say they were married in Italy. They were married in New York State and celebrated in Italy. Marriage celebration has no legal meaning whatever.
I’m guessing there are many heated threads on this board about the distinction between a civil service and a marriage service.
They had their marriage service in Italy. So there. 
Deal with it. Move on. Civil service in New York (or where ever it turns out they did).
Pretty much everywhere in Europe the two are separate anyway. You have to have the civil service to be married legally. The church thing is just what you do if you want to celebrate that way.
And how is this different Kimye anyway? Didn’t they do the civil piece somewhere else? And “everyone” knows they got “married” in Italy.
Whether you consider it relevant to this discussion or not, I am married to a person of the same sex here in Canada. We rushed into marriage in 2006 after living together only 30 years, so we have been legally married 8 years.
So I am 100% in favour of SSM. I just think it is wrong to say they were married in Italy when Italy does not recognize either same-sex civil marriage nor same-sex religious marriage.
The institution of marriage long predates the institution of states. Do you also hold as invalid the untold millions of marriages contracted before governments started recognizing (and later regulating) them?
What was more meaningful to you when you got married - the words you exchanged, or the signature you put on a piece of paper? For the vast majority of people who marry, it’s the words they exchange to each other, and doing so in front of those they care about. For Neil and David, those words were exchanged in Italy in front of family and friends. I suspect that if the signatures were more important for them, then they wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of doing a single thing in Italy, and just gone there for a honeymoon.
I know quite a few same sex couples who were married well before their marriage could ever be legally recognized. My uncles were married well before they eloped to Iowa for a small civil ceremony.
a religious ceremony is performed by a celebrant. so as far as a religious marriage becomes a legal marriage that action is called a celebration by that religion.
It certainly does. You can take out all the licences you want, and sign and file all the papers you want, but under New York State law you are not married unless you particapate in a ceremony which, at a minimum, must involve both parties declaring in the presence of a public official or a clergyman and at least one other witness that each takes the other as his or her spouse.
Having said that, for the purposes of New York law the ceremony must take place in New York state, so if Harris and his partner were married in New York they must have had a ceremony in New York either before or after their ceremony in Italy. But the ceremony is essential.
The typical NYC City Hall wedding does stretch the definition of “ceremony” somewhat. If that’s what we’re going with, then a bail hearing is a ceremony, too.
Well, I have never been to an NYC City Hall wedding. But the point is that the essence of the marriage is the exchange of commitments between the couple; all the rest is just compliance with the registration requirements. Signing and filing your marriage licence is no more a marriage than registering a birth is a birth. By the time you attend to either of those things, the main event has already happened.
with the event allowed by a marriage license (a marriage) that event can either be done by a legal official ( judge, justice of the peace, who ever) or a religious person (celebrant) allowed to perform that religious ritual (marriage celebration).
So, it sounds as if no one here has been married?
First thing you have to do is go to the court house/city hall and get a marriage license. When you two sign it, you do it in front of a witness. Duh. You don’t just mail order the things.
For Wisconsin, we went to court, applied for a marriage license, went before the judge, read his spiel, and then we were married. Then he signed it, a another person working for/with him signed it, and we were done.
They were married in Italy. That’s where the marriage was solemnized, in accordance with the law of New York.
“Marriage” and “wedding” have become colloquially conflated. Which can make these discussions confusing.
A marriage is a long-term bond and commitment between two people to form a family unit together. There are many types of marriages: civil, common-law, same-sex, morganatic, etc.
There are also many ways to get married. The fundamental part is the two people expressing their intent and then acting on it (basically a verbal contract). Or, they can perform a ceremony in front of their family and friends so that the marriage is socially recognized (that is, a wedding). Or, they can fulfill a legal process so that the state recognizes their marriage (a marriage license, etc).
Harris and Burtka got “married in Italy” in the sense that they made a commitment in front of their friends and family. But not in the sense of fulfilling the legal requirements of a marriage license in Italy (maybe; I don’t know what Italy’s policy of recognizing foreign marriages legally licensed elsewhere is). It wouldn’t surprise me if they were already married in the fundamental sense of their commitment to each other.
Presumably, Harris and Burtka were married in a low key civil ceremony in New York before going to Italy to celebrate the ceremony with their friends and families. Or, possibly, they did the civil ceremony on their return from Italy.
Signing the marriage licence is not actually the event that puts the seal on your marriage. In New York, once you have exchanged your consents in the presence of the witness, you are married. The subsequent signing and filing of papers is a registration requirement, but it’s not essential to the validity of your marriage.
(Conversely, if you sign and file the papers falsely claiming that you have been married when in fact you haven’t been - i.e. you haven’t exchanged the necessary consents in the presence of a witness - then you are not married, but you and the celebrant have probably committed some offence of falsifying public records. But I doubt this comes up very often.)