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Elizabeth Smart gets married in Hawaii

 
Published Feb. 20, 2012

SALT LAKE CITY — Elizabeth Smart married her fiance at a Mormon temple in Hawaii, several months ahead of schedule after news of her engagement last month drew widespread media attention.

A family spokesman said the Utah woman who was kidnapped at knifepoint at age 14 and held captive for nine months married Matthew Gilmour on Oahu's North Shore on Saturday.

"Elizabeth's desire was for what most women want — to celebrate her nuptials in a private wedding with family and close friends," family spokesman Chris Thomas said in a statement. "She decided, about a week ago, the best way to avoid significant distraction was to change her wedding plans and to get married in an unscheduled ceremony outside of Utah."

Onetime itinerant street preacher Brian Mitchell was convicted in 2010 of Smart's 2002 kidnapping and sexual assault. He is serving a life sentence.

Smart, 24, is a senior at Brigham Young University. She met Gilmour, of Aberdeen, Scotland, while doing Mormon missionary work in Paris.

The couple wed at the Laie Hawaii Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in front of a small group of family members, Thomas said. The group then celebrated at a private reception and luau.