Australia said yes!
Equal marriage passed in the Australian parliament on December 9 but, thanks to the traditional 30-day waiting period, most same-sex couples had to wait until January 9 to tie the knot. (A few couples got special exemptions to marry early.)
Below, browse images from some of the first same-sex weddings from Down Under. Love wins!
Hundreds of couples had their ceremonies at the stroke of midnight, like Gillian Brady and Lisa Goldsmith (above) who were wed at The Court in Perth.
Australian Commonwealth Games sprinters Craig Burns (above, right) and Luke Sullivan were wed at Summergrove Estate in New South Wales at 12:01am, timing it so the official, legally binding words were said once the date turned over.
One couple, Ron van Houwelingen and Antony McManus, had been together for 30 years—and have had more than a dozen commitment ceremonies. But their wedding Tuesday at the David Williamson Theatre at Melbourne Polytechnic in Prahran was the first one to make them legal spouses. The men met at the school as students in 1987.
“Ron, together we fought for this,” McManus said in his vows. “And, darling man, we won.”
