On December 6, 2000, Dorough met Leigh Anne Boniello, a film executive producer for Warner Brothers, who was working as the webmaster for the official Backstreet Boys website at the time. Howie and Leigh dated for six years and in 2006 he proposed to her in front of her family on New Year's. A year later, on December 8, 2007, they tied the knot in a traditional Catholic ceremony at St. James Cathedral, where he was baptized and sang choir at in Orlando, Florida. They have two sons together.