Mark Anthony Indelicato, Jr., was ready to find a boyfriend in the fall of 2024. Very ready.
In the years before, the actor, who was raised in Philadelphia, had felt a bit lost. After his big break in 2005, playing the role of Justin Suarez on ABC’s “Ugly Betty” for four seasons, Indelicato attended New York University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations. The break was great for his worldview, but not his acting career.
“It’s not like my agents or managers dumped me or anything,” he said. “It was just nothing was available to me.”
In 2019, after moving back in with his parents, he promised himself that if he didn’t land a role by the end of 2020, he’d give up on Hollywood and apply to graduate school.
In October 2020, he landed the role of Damien, the improbably patient assistant to Jean Smart’s imperious comedian Deborah Vance on the HBO comedy “Hacks.”
After four years of critical acclaim and steady work, Indelicato shifted his focus from his career to his love life. “I just woke up one day and made a decision, because ‘Hacks’ has been going so well and I had moved into my own place,” said Indelicato, now 32. “I was finally an adult, on my feet, who could perhaps sustain a relationship.”
After a few “demoralizing” first dates, he matched on Hinge with David Joel Watson, 38, the senior director of creative and communications at the Men’s Health Foundation, which specializes in H.I.V./AIDS prevention and management. Watson grew up in Richmond, Va., and received a bachelor’s degree in communications from Virginia Commonwealth University.
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Indelicato was attracted to the fact that Watson spoke four languages, while Watson liked Indelicato’s responses to the Hinge profile prompts: He reported his love language as “cooking you a stunning meal,” and said that the way to win him over was by “being a silly goose.” He did not recognize Indelicato from TV.
For their first date, in November 2024, they grabbed tacos at Tu Madre in West Hollywood, Calif. Within minutes of hugging hello, they were holding hands. “It just felt like there was no posturing,” Watson said. “He was so warm right away. It made me feel very safe.”
In fact, after finishing their meal and sharing their first kiss, Indelicato asked Watson back to his West Hollywood apartment to assemble a TV stand. It was not a euphemism, Indelicato said.
“He identified in me that I love a project. I love to feel like I’m being helpful and productive,” Watson said. “And so when he asked for help, I’m like, ‘Absolutely. If that’s going to impress you, I’m so happy to do this for you.’”
The scene of Watson tinkering with particleboard as they flirted “felt very romantic comedy type energy, for sure,” Indelicato said. By the end of the evening, they decided as a pair to delete Hinge from their phones.
Their second date, the next day, again at Indelicato’s home, held a similar Nora Ephron quality. “He had tea lights all over the apartment. He had this old jazz record playing on vinyl. He had cooked dinner, true to his Hinge profile,” Watson said. (Dinner was baked ziti.) “There were so many moments at the very beginning where I was like, I can’t believe it. This is surreal. This is so romantic!”
For Indelicato, the wonder of their connection was in a meeting of the minds. “He’s such a curious person. He loves to learn, and so do I,” he said. “He does such incredible work, and he’s an avid reader. Every single date we had, he’d have a book in his bag or recommend one to me.”
Within three weeks of meeting, they declared their love for each other, and Watson met Indelicato’s parents, Lynn and Mark Indelicato, Sr., who also lived in Los Angeles at the time. “It was alchemy,” Indelicato said. “I said to my friends, ‘If I was on the other side and you were telling me this, I’d be like, dude, you’re crazy. This person is love-bombing you.’”
Watson himself was one such doubter. “I remember thinking, If this is too good to be true, I’ll just try to enjoy it for what it is now,” he said. “I’m going to enjoy each moment that I have of this.”
After another meal at home with Indelicato’s mother in November 2024, the couple was getting ready for bed when Indelicato grabbed his father’s wedding ring, which had been passed down to him, and walked to Watson’s side of the bed. “He stands there holding the ring in his hand and starts telling me, ‘You’re the love of my life. Our connection is so amazing,’” Watson said. Then he knelt down and proposed. Watson’s response was “Yes. Yes. Yes.”
The speed of their love story was unnerving for some of the people in their lives. Among the utterly thrilled were his mother and one of his best friends and mentors, Ana Ortiz, who played his mother on “Ugly Betty” and with whom he hosted the rewatch podcast “Viva Betty.”
“She never treated me like a child,” he said of Ortiz. “She’s always been my biggest champion. If I need bail money, I’m calling Ana.”
Ortiz remembered meeting Watson as a “relief.” “The thing about Marky is he’s all the things: He’s a creative, but he’s also an intellectual. He’s very political. I was always thinking, how do you meet somebody who can match that?” she said. “Then along comes David, who’s all the things and then some. It was almost more than we could stand.”
Given the speed of their first month, the couple decided on a long engagement. As “Hacks” filmed its final season last year, they finally began planning a wedding. Ortiz quickly offered up her Laurel Canyon home to host the celebration.
“We wanted to have something smaller and intimate, and her home means so much to me,” Indelicato said. “It was the greatest wedding gift that anyone can ever receive.”
“Mark grew up in this house,” Ortiz said. “This was the house I bought when I had ‘Ugly Betty’ money. We always call it ‘the house that Betty built.’ So it just seemed sort of apropos that it was here.”
Another Hollywood fairy godmother was similarly generous. Smart, who won five Emmys for “Hacks,” asked on the set in 2025 who was officiating the wedding. “I asked her if she would, and she replied, ‘I thought you’d never ask,’” Indelicato said.
Smart spoke with the grooms separately in the months leading up to the wedding to gather material for the ceremony. “They were falling all over themselves, saying such wonderful things about each other. What impressed me so much was the enormous respect they have for each other,” she said in an interview with The New York Times. “And only one of them mentioned they also thought the other was incredibly hot.”
The couple married Oct. 10 on a grassy hill in front of 80 guests, including Watson’s parents, Jennie and Edward Watson, Jr. The vision for the celebration was “backyard black tie,” with lights strung into the oak trees and a buffet of Italian American-style food, featuring dishes like spicy fusilli and sausage orecchiette with broccoli rabe, catered by Jon & Vinny’s and inspired by Indelicato’s Italian American upbringing in Philadelphia.
“I didn’t want a coursed-out dinner because it just feels so WASP-y and stuffy to me,” Indelicato said. “It’s like, get your plate and go up and help yourself. That’s how I grew up and how I’ve always enjoyed eating.”
Another Emmy-winning “Hacks” star, Hannah Einbinder, gave the last speech of the night, in which she impersonated Indelicato bragging about Watson’s accomplishments, referring to him as “my David” in a blended Philadelphia-New York accent that had the crowd ‘howling,’” Ortiz said.
That Indelicato has formed such tight bonds with his colleagues is another trait that Watson adores. “That’s something that stands out: the people around him and the people he attracts are just really great people, kindhearted and genuine,” he said.
Instead of cake, they served cannoli from the L.G.B.T.Q.-owned business Bug & Bear’s Cannoli. Guests danced the night away to Madonna and the Spice Girls, as spun by their friend Alex Chapman.
Watson watched his father, Edward Watson, Jr., who grew up in West Virginia as the grandson of a coal miner, hobnob with Emmy winners, while Indelicato’s father cut cigars and handed out tequila shots. The garden steps on which the ceremony took place lent drama for Madonna choreography, as Ortiz and “Ugly Betty” star America Ferrera demanded, “‘More stair work!’”
“They just made us walk up and down the stairs to ‘Like a Prayer,’” Indelicato said. “It was a gay fairy tale.”
A gay fairy tale, and an unforgettable party. “One of the things I love about Mark is if he’s awake,” Watson said, “then there’s never really a dull moment.”
On This Day
When Oct. 10, 2026
Where The home of Indelicato’s “Ugly Betty” co-star Ana Ortiz, in the Laurel Canyon neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Keeping It Classy While Indelicato is known to wear sequins and patterns on red carpets, the grooms opted to wed in classic black Calvin Klein tuxedos. They later changed into more exuberant vintage dress shirts from Lidow Archive in Los Angeles, with Indelicato in a graphic print from Versace and Watson in a silk Moschino Couture top printed with an image of a Venetian piazza.
A Philadelphia Story In a nod to Indelicato’s native city and “Hacks” star Hannah Einbinder’s own ferocious fandom, she began her speech by leading his family in a chant for the E-A-G-L-E-S.
For her speech, Ortiz surprised the grooms by including “Ugly Betty” co-star America Ferrera and having both talk in character as if the character Justin was getting married. “It was another full-circle moment,” Ortiz said.
Officiant to the Stars Over the course of the couple’s long engagement, “Jean Smart officiated two other weddings. “Apparently, this is my new side hustle, because the show’s over,” she said. “Girl’s got to make a living.” She was ordained by American Marriage Ministries. “Well, I’d like to say that it was a long, thoughtful process with some deep conversations, but I believe my assistant did it for me online.”
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