Earlier this month, actor Neil Patrick Harris finally married his fiancé David Burtka in Italy after a long engagement. Harris recently spoke about his destination wedding when he made a guest appearance on the talk show The View and said that the reason they did it was for the benefit of their three-year-old twins, Harper Grace and Gideon Scott.

On Wednesday, Harris told the hosts of The View that he and Burtka decided to get married so that their children could better understand their family. He stressed that they weren’t getting married to elicit any kind of reaction from anyone as they had already been together for more than 10 years.

“I think when our kids got to the age where they were having reasonable conversations — when they’re asking lots of ‘why’ questions — then it seemed like to be able to have a real, clear-cut explanation of who their daddy is, I think it’s great [to say], ‘He’s my husband,” Harris explained.

Congrats to Neil Patrick Harris & his husband @Davidburtka! The couple married this weekend. #lgbt #NPH pic.twitter.com/WBlCzIrQUv

— freedomtomarry (@freedomtomarry) September 8, 2014

Set in an Italian castle, the romantic wedding was described as intimate by Harris, with only 45 guests. “I just wanted to be able to say nice things about David to David in front of the people that mattered the most to us. It was less about a proclamation and more about a declaration that I was able to share in front of our kids,” he said.

Harris confessed that despite having spent all those years living with Burtka, he and his groom still felt emotional at the ceremony. “It was so crazy, because when you watch other people say their vows and get all choked up, you say ‘Come on! Pull it together, man.’ Then when you are standing there and it’s you and you have this piece of paper in your hand and it’s shaking… you can’t help but just get super-duper choked up,” he said.