Two women tied the note just minutes after midnight in Austria making them the first same-sex couple to get married on the day it became legal.

Nicole Kopaunik and Daniela Paier, both 37, got married in the southern town of Velden at five minutes past midnight on 1 January.

In December 2017, the Constitutional Court ruled the same-sex marriage ban was discriminatory. The government complied with the court’s ruling and legislated that marriage will be available to all from 1 January, 2019.

The couple who will take the married name of Kopaunik are the second same-sex couple to marry.

‘We are a family and will have a family name,’ Paier told Orf.

Five of couples who challenged Austria’s laws in the Supreme Court got special permission to marry early. One of those couples was two women who tied the knot in October last year.

Town gets behind happy couple

The women had been engaged for four years and didn’t want to have a civil partnership. Civil partnership have been available to same-sex couples since 2010.

‘Getting married was only a matter of time for us, or rather a matter of legal regulation,’ Kopaunik said.

‘Now everyone has the chance to decide for themselves, if they want a “marriage for all” or a legal partnership, but that was not the case before.

‘We decided to marry and are happy about it.’

Wedding planners, Velden locals and even the mayor got involved in planning the couple’s big day.

‘Thanks to all church officials and especially to our registrar that everything went so well,’ said Velden Mayor, Ferdinand Vouk.

‘It was a great pleasure and honor for us that Nicole and Daniela got married to us.’

The wedding registrar, Klaus Gottwald, admitted there were some issue to iron out in the nuptials.

‘Although I have done this before, (that wedding) was a bit exciting,’ he said.

‘There were a few small obstacles, such as the saying, with the “lawfully wedded husband”. We have two wives, and I had practice saying it before the wedding.’