Elizabeth Smart met her husband Matthew Gilmour while they were both serving on Mormon missionary trips in Paris, France, in 2009.

How Did Elizabeth Smart Meet Her Husband? (Quick Scoop)

Elizabeth Smart’s love story with Matthew Gilmour is surprisingly low‑key and sweet, especially considering how public the rest of her life has been.

The First Meeting: Paris Mission

  • They met in Paris in 2009 while both were serving as missionaries for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS).
  • Elizabeth was there while studying at Brigham Young University and doing a Mormon mission trip.
  • Matthew, originally from Scotland, was on his own mission in the same city.
  • Because he lived outside the U.S., he did not immediately recognize her as the kidnapping survivor from American news coverage, which allowed him to get to know her simply as a person, not as a headline.

In later interviews, Matthew has said he was drawn to her confidence and who she was in the present, not her past.

From Friends To Something More

  • After meeting in Paris, they stayed friends for nearly two years before things turned romantic.
  • When his mission ended, Matthew invited Elizabeth to visit him in Scotland.
  • She later shared that when she walked off the plane in Aberdeen and saw him waiting, she felt like she had “come home” and realized he was everything she wanted in a spouse.
  • Their relationship grew from that long-distance friendship into dating, with a focus on faith, trust, and a normal, private life.

Engagement And Marriage (Briefly)

  • Matthew proposed to Elizabeth in January 2012 after about a year of formal dating.
  • They married in a small, private ceremony in Hawaii in February 2012, moving the date up after intense media attention on their engagement.

TL;DR: When people ask “how did Elizabeth Smart meet her husband?” the answer is: on a Mormon mission trip in Paris in 2009, where they first became friends, then gradually fell in love over a couple of years of friendship and long‑distance connection.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.