Elizabeth Darker Smith was going to marry her sweetheart, and she wanted to be married in church. The 25-year-old Sunday School teacher, living near Melbourne, Australia, could not travel more than 5,500 miles to Hawaii to be married in the nearest temple. Still, even though it could be only a civil marriage for the time being, Elizabeth wanted to be married in an LDS chapel, by a priesthood holder who understood the importance of marriage.

But Elizabeth’s wedding to Louis Kneale, and that of Louis’s brother Raymond Kneale to his fiancee Elsie Parker, and those of three other Latter-day Saint couples engaged to marry in Melbourne in 1923, could not take place in LDS chapels, nor could an elder in the Church conduct the ceremony for any of them. The Church was not authorized under Australian law to perform marriages, so the only choice open to couples like Elizabeth and Louis was to marry in the registry office before a civil magistrate, or to marry in some authorized church before a clergyman of another faith. The same limited options were faced by Latter-day Saint couples in most places in the world outside the United States.

Australian Mission President Don C. Rushton, faced with so many young couples eager to marry in the summer of 1923, decided that the time was ripe for change. He appealed to the state government of Victoria for permission to perform weddings, and after a month’s deliberation, the government granted that permission. Elizabeth Darker Smith was ecstatic, even when newspaper reporters asked her about the Church’s history with plural marriage.

“I suppose a large crowd will attend to the wedding to see how many wives my husband is going to have,” she quipped. “Many persons forget that a manifesto against polygamy was issued by the Church in 1890.” Yes, she told the reporter, she had heard all the false stories that Mormon missionaries were in Australia chiefly to find brides. “The accusations we often hear against us are sometimes more humorous than annoying,” she said.

Elizabeth was right about public interest in her wedding – or at least about public curiosity concerning Mormonism. The LDS chapel was large enough to seat 300, but so many people, including newspaper reporters and government officials, attended the ceremony that the crowd spilled out into the street in front of the chapel. Elizabeth, carrying her bouquet of lilies and sweet peas, stood next to Louis, dressed in his dark suit, under an arch decorated with flowers and bells. They were married by Elder Joseph B. Gunnell of Wellsville, Utah, who, following the 15-minute ceremony, presented the bride with a Bible.

“We feel encouraged,” President Rushton reported, by the positive attention following the state’s authorization of the Church to conduct weddings. “We should do a greater work than has ever been done here now that we have things so favorable.”

Elizabeth Darker Smith Kneale died in 1950 and her husband Louis Kneale died in 1952, before any temple had been built closer than Hawaii. They were sealed posthumously, in the Alberta Temple, in 1953.