Berlin, September 19: German Foreign Minister and Deputy Chancellor Guido Westerwelle has married his long time gay partner at a secret registry office wedding in Bonn.
48-year-old Westerwelle and businessman Michael Mronz entered the wedlock on Friday when Bonn’s Mayor Juergen Nymptsch personally performed the ceremony as the registrar, local media reports said.
Neither Chancellor Angela Merkel nor any of Westerwelle’s Cabinet colleagues were present when the Foreign Minister gave his ‘ja’ or yes to Mronz, 43, and the ceremony was attended only by a handful of closest family members and friends of the couple, the reports said.
Westerwelle and Mronz, a promoter of sporting events, later celebrated the formalisation of their partnership in a restaurant in Cologne.
They met for the first time at a horse racing championship in the city of Aacnen in 2003 and since then they have been living as a couple.
–PTI