Who Was Catherine O'Hara Married To? Meet Her Husband Bo Welch

Hollywood played a part in bringing Catherine O'Hara and her husband, Bo Welch, together.

Like the award-winning actress, Welch is also in the film industry as a production designer and director. He has worked on several TV and film projects, including Men in Black, A Little Princess and Edward Scissorhands, after scoring his big break with The Color Purple in 1985.

"If you have to wake up in the morning to do something, I can't think of anything better [than production design]," the Oscar-nominated production designer said in a July 2022 interview with Below the Line. "You can do this job for 100 years, and I swear every time you come to this part of production design, picking colors, it's like you've just started this career. It is so difficult."

As a director, the Pennsylvania native's name appeared in the credits of Secret Agent Man, The Cat in the Hat and A Series of Unfortunate Events.

Welch's roles in the industry soon became the bridge that connected him to O'Hara.

The pair met while working on Tim Burton's Beetlejuice, where Welch handled the film's production design team and O'Hara starred as Delia.

"He was a production designer — designed all those wild sets," she shared during a 2024 episode of The Kelly Clarkson Show. "He was talking to me every day, it was like high school, he's just talking to me every day by our lockers. And then he never asked me out."

O'Hara also recalled the love story in an interview with InStyle in January 2018, saying, "I was grouching to Tim Burton about how this guy was talking to me all the time and never asking me out. We had a break between filming in Los Angeles and on location, and in that time, Tim told Bo that he should ask me out."

Welch ultimately asked O'Hara out on the first day of shooting at the Beetlejuice house in Vermont.

After filming Beetlejuice, O'Hara decided to leave Canada and relocate to Los Angeles to be with Welch.

"Yeah, I moved for love," she told The New Yorker in January 2019.

Welch and O'Hara sealed their union with a kiss during their wedding ceremony on April 25, 1992.

Following the nuptials, Burton gave them tickets to a private Vatican tour.

Recalling their visit, the Home Alone actress told Kelly Clarkson it was "crazy" when a priest who was showing them around was scolded because they "were in the pope's closet, like, looking at garments and stuff."

"And this priest is just letting us open cases, and pretending to put a crown inside Bo's backpack, taking pictures," she continued.

Welch and O'Hara welcomed their first child, Matthew, in 1994. Three years later, they expanded their brood with the birth of their second son, Luke.

"I have two sons, and when they were babies, I thought what's the point? What's the point of having children if I'm not going to be with them, so that was always number one consideration and always will be," she told 519 Magazine about putting her family first.

Throughout their more than 30-year marriage, Welch and O'Hara stood by each other — especially during challenging times.

"We've been through some dangerous times in our marriage, and thank God we both just really wanted to work on it and stay married," O'Hara said. "I have friends who've been divorced and one of them really wanted to work on it and the other didn't. And you just can't win. You can't do anything that way. But thank God we both wanted to, when we went through rough times."

She noted, "And laughing. Respecting each other and talking, but laughing comes from that too. People always say communicate, right? Tell them how you're feeling.' We do a lot of it with jokes. We'll make fun of each other instead of yelling at each other. Sarcasm helps! … It's a very s--- thing to make each other laugh."

Welch and O'Hara attended public gatherings and red carpet events together, including at the premiere of Beetlejuice Beetlejuice at the Venice Film Festival in August 2024.