You. Over there. Wanna be the groom?

White Australian history leans heavily on those who traveled great distances to relocate. Young women called 'proxy brides' had to stage fake weddings in the '50s and '60s before casting off from their Mediterranean homelands:

In a defining decade for Australia, and particularly Victoria, huge transport ships brought young women from all over southern Europe to balance the male migrants. It was unthinkable for young women like Tonina to travel alone, unwed. Respect lay in being married.

The proxy came in the form of a ceremony, in which another village man would stand in for the groom, as a priest performed the wedding in his absence. Ring on finger, the girl would then board a ship bound for Australia as a married woman, due to be collected by her husband at journey's end.

Australian newspapers welcomed the exotic female fleet with colourful headlines and photographs. "Proxy grooms storm a bride ship" summarised a scene of men crowding onto a pier and actually clambering up the ship's hull to claim their bride, as shy girls looked down from an upper deck.