Two Female Couples Become First to Wed In Australia Under Marriage Equality

Two couples married in Australia on Saturday, the first to wed since the people and Parliament voted "yes" on equality.

Tracy E. Gilchrist

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP of Editorial and Special Projects at equalpride. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

December 16 2017 8:02 PM EST

July 11 2018 11:59 PM EST

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Same-sex couples began marrying in Australia on Saturday, a full three weeks sooner than the first marriages were expected to happen on Jan. 9 since the Australian people and Parliament voted in favor of marriage equality earlier this month.

For months, pro and anti-marriage equality ads flooded Australia as the people there had until November to mail-in a non-binding ballot saying whether they were for or against marriage equality, which Parliament would use as a guide for the official vote. The votes were counted and by Nov. 14, it was clear that the Australian people chose love. By Dec. 7, Parliament voted in favor of equality and couples began registering to marry. The hitch was that there was a 30-day waiting period, which would have meant couples could marry only as soon as early January.

But a pair of female couples, one from Sydney and one from Melbourne, sought exemptions that allowed them to wed early, according to The Telegraph.

The lesbian couple from Sydney, Lauren Price and Amy Laker, wore white as they said "I do" at their wedding in Macarthur Park in Camden. The couple was allowed to wed before the 30-day waiting period was up because they had planned a civil ceremony and Price's family had already booked the trip from their home in Wales, UK, according to Yahoo.