Playboy founder Hugh Hefner marries his 'runaway bride'

Hugh Hefner and his fiancee, Playboy Playmate Crystal Harris, arrive at the opening night gala of the 2011 TCM Classic Film Festival featuring a screening of a restoration of 'An American In Paris' in Hollywood, California April 28, 2011.

(Reuters) - Octogenarian Playboy founder Hugh Hefner briefly swapped his iconic silk pajamas for a tuxedo to marry Crystal Harris, the one-time "runaway bride" who followed through this time at a New Year's Eve wedding.

"Happy New Year from Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Hefner!" the Playboy magazine publisher tweeted early on Tuesday.

The message accompanied a photograph of Hefner, 86, wearing what appeared to be purple silk pajamas under a black bathrobe and snuggling his bride, 26, still wearing her pale pink wedding dress. He also wore his trademark captain's hat.

An hour earlier, Hefner posted a picture of himself in a tuxedo with his bride under an arch of pink and white flowers at the wedding ceremony in the Playboy Mansion in Beverly Hills, California.

"Crystal & I married on New Year's Eve in the Mansion with Keith as my Best Man. Love that girl!" Hefner wrote on Twitter with the picture, referring to his brother Keith Hefner, a songwriter.

The couple tied the knot more than a year after their planned 2011 wedding was scuttled when Harris got cold feet.

The blonde Playboy Playmate of the Month for December 2009 jettisoned the adult entertainment mogul in what was called a "change of heart" five days before a lavish June 2011 wedding before 300 guests.

Harris, who appeared on the July 2011 cover of the adult magazine with a "runaway bride" sticker covering her bottom half, tweeted on Monday that she was ready to commit and changed her name to "Crystal Hefner" on the micro-blogging site.

"Today is the day I become Mrs. Hugh Hefner," Harris, who has a psychology degree, wrote on Twitter after writing "Feeling very happy, lucky, and blessed."

The San Diego native, whose parents are British, said she asked for Christmas ornaments rather than lingerie at her pre-Christmas bridal shower to help decorate Hefner's famed mansion.

Hefner, founder of the Playboy adult entertainment empire, has been married twice before. He and his second wife Kimberley Conrad, also a former Playmate, divorced in 2010 after a lengthy separation. His first marriage to Mildred Williams ended in divorce in 1959. He has two children from each marriage.

(Reporting by Eric Kelsey and Barbara Goldberg; Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst and Paul Simao)