Insight Sport: Sharni Williams and Mel Smale celebrate in the name of love
When Australian rugby sevens star Sharni Williams met her partner Mel Smale eight years ago, gay marriage wasn’t legal. But she’s never been one to back down from a challenge.
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On their favourite beach, in front of their favourite people, Australian rugby sevens star Sharni Williams and partner Mel Smale married in a ceremony beyond dreams.
At the ceremony last Thursday, Williams surprised guests, and her partner’s parents, by announcing that she would be changing her surname to Smale.
And so, Mrs and Mrs Smale became official on the eve of Sydney’s World Pride celebrations.
“The day far surpassed anything we could have dreamt of,” said Sharni Smale, who won Olympic gold with her Aussie teammates at the Rio Games in 2016.
“To have all our people in the same space, those that love and support us, celebrating our love was simply magical. How great is love.”
The couple first set eyes on each other eight years ago.
“We met in 2015, I was living in McKay, Queensland and Sharni’s parents were living there at the same time,” Mel Smale said.
“One of my best friends, it was her birthday, and she worked with Sharni’s mum in the bank. So I went to her birthday party and she was busy telling me about this person that was coming that had just qualified for the Rio Olympics for rugby.
“I was mildly impressed, because I’m a Kiwi. I was like, ‘Cool, but also, Australian’.
“I didn’t really think too much of it, I was making sangria, that was my focus at the time, until she arrived.
“And for me, she arrived around the corner of the house and I just saw this big smile and I was a little bit more interested then.
“So that’s how me met, and it was long distance for quite some time, until after the Rio Olympics and then I moved down [to Sydney]. For a long time it was just friends, and then it grew into more.
Sharni made the decision to change her name after talking to musician friend Tessa Robinson – who performs as Tessa Devine and played at their wedding.
“She said ‘You can be Sharni Smale, and have Sharni Williams as your professional business name’, and I thought there’s nothing stopping me, it was the lightbulb moment,” Smale said.
“Sharni Williams doesn’t disappear, she’s there as the footy player and when I finish, maybe I’m running football clinics or doing inspirational chats, that’s Sharni Williams, and Sharni Smale is the person that fell in love with Mel.”
Mel added: “There’s so much stereotypical ideas about gay couples, they would traditionally think Sharni is the more dominant or masculine, so a lot of people were asking me if I was changing my name.
“It’s been funny since she made the call because I just said, ‘No I’m not changing my name’, and nothing else. They had no idea.
“We are so equal in everything.”
The couple married outdoors at Clareville Beach, not far from their Newport home.
Sharni had proposed to Mel on New Year’s Eve, 2020, when they were locked down due to the Avalon Covid-19 cluster and managed to gather with two couple friends at their waterfront home.
Sharni had earlier emailed Mel’s parents to ask for their blessing, and after Mel said yes they had a video call with them in New Zealand.
But when they became a couple, gay marriage wasn’t legal in Australia.
“When I met Mel, I just knew this person was going to be my forever,” Sharni said.
“The universe had spoken to me and said, ‘This is your chance, this is your time’.
“If the world wasn’t going to accept us, then at least I was going to be happy.
“As society painted that picture for me, I always thought I’d walk down the aisle to a man.
“And finally when you meet the person you want to marry and you start to have those visions, it’s like, I really want to fight for this legal side of it now, I want everybody to feel this way, I want to be accepted for who I am.
“It’s my sexuality right, it’s hugely important for everyone to be accepted. Everyone thinks it’s a choice, it’s not a choice, it’s how I am.”
The Yes vote in December 2017 for marriage equality finally made it possible for couples like the Smales to dream of a legal wedding.
“We knew it was forever, we were strong in that, but I do know when the Yes vote happened it was hugely emotional,” Mel said.
“We almost didn’t realise how important it was until it was announced.
“I came out later in life, I didn’t go through the feelings of not being accepted, I didn’t go through a lot of what Sharni’s gone through in terms of what happens when you’re younger and coming out, and the discrimination.
“I hadn’t felt that, but in that moment [of the Yes vote] it made me realise that I am fully accepted, in a way that I didn’t realise was missing.”
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Read the inside story on Sharni and Mel Smale’s heartbreaking fight to get married, in Insight Sport’s Pride edition to be published on Tuesday, February 21 across News Corp Australia newspapers and websites here
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