send html emails with smtplib and gmail

import smtplib, email.message

# configure smtp server for sending mail
smtp_host = 'smtp.gmail.com'
smtp_port = 587
smtp_user = '[email protected]'
smtp_password = 'password'

def send_email(message, subject, recipient):
    msg = email.message.Message()
    msg['Subject'] = subject
    msg['From'] = smtp_user
    msg['To'] = recipient
    msg.add_header('Content-Type','text/html')
    msg.set_payload(message)

    server = smtplib.SMTP(smtp_host, smtp_port)
    server.ehlo()
    server.starttls()
    server.login(smtp_user, smtp_password)
    server.sendmail(msg['From'], msg['To'], msg.as_string().encode('utf-8'))
    server.quit()