Fancy a "proxy" marriage to someone you haven't seen since childhood? Sometimes things just have a way of working out. Just look at Carmelo and Sandra Mirabelli – born and raised in the same village, but never really meeting until well after they were married. Incredibly, he remembers the day she was born; he was six, and recalls Sandra's father, a family friend, being upset that his newborn daughter was not a son. There his memory ended. Meanwhile, he had a typical peasant upbringing, brought up by his single mother and working for most of the week, attending school just once a week. After World War II, he worked in orchards picking oranges and lemons, with all the village boys. He eventually left his village – and, indeed, Europe – in 1950, when he sailed to Sydney on the Genoa, arriving in February 1951. He spent six years travelling between cane fields and orchards, and sending money home to Italy for his mother.

When it came time for him to settle down and find a wife, Carmelo was reluctant to return home as he would have been forced into military service. When his mother suggested he marry Sandra Greco, he was initially reluctant. The bad-luck baby girl? But he relented when his mother reassured him that she had grown into a beauty.

In December 1956, two proxy weddings took place – one in Sicily with a full church service and Sandra in her wedding finery, and Carmelo's brother-in-law standing in as the groom. Carmelo also held a service in Brisbane with some friends and family, including a stand-in "bride" (one of his mates in a dress).

By the time it came time for Sandra to travel to Melbourne to meet her new husband, the war in the Suez Canal prevented her from sailing to Australia as planned, and she eventually arrived by plane, becoming the first person from her village to fly.

Once here, she found a job as a seamstress and recalled that, as with most Italian immigrant brides, she never quite felt at home here and struggled to learn English. But she continued working from home after her children were born, and the family eventually moved to Brighton, where Carmelo had built a house. Their marriage is recorded on a plaque at the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, and Sandra's wedding dress and veil – donned once more in an official ceremony once she arrived in Australia – are now part of the National Museum's collection.

A life and love lost

This pearl necklace and three matching brooches were gifts to one Janet Templeton from her husband, Andrew, in the early 1800s. Sigh – we should be so lucky, eh ladies? Except that, by the time the pieces ended up in the National Historical Collection at the National Museum of Australia, they were poignant symbols of a former life, rather than a sign of privilege and wealth.

Janet and Andrew were married in Glasgow in 1814. Letters in the museum's collection, written by a jeweller named Mr Guthrie, indicate that Andrew bought these stunners as a special wedding gift for his new wife. Andrew was a wealthy man who worked in finance, managing the Paisley Union Bank in Glasgow. The couple went on to have nine children, living a comfortable life well supported by Andrew's position. But it was not to last; later newspaper articles reflecting on Janet's life say that despite his original wealth, when Andrew died in 1829 he had been swindled by his accountant and had little money left to his name.

After Andrew's death, Janet used the small estate to purchase two flocks of Saxon merino sheep from Germany, intent on relocating to Australia and using them to forge a new life. One flock she kept, the other she gave to her brother, John Forlonge. In 1831 Janet chartered a brig named the Czar and journeyed across the seas with John, his family, eight of her nine children, around seven employees and both flocks of sheep. The Forlonges based themselves in Tasmania and became a cornerstone of the wool industry in the region. Janet and her children eventually settled near Goulburn.

The Templetons worked hard and built up a fortune, taking ownership of Seven Creeks near Euroa and building Roseneath cottage, now a heritage-listed house in Parramatta. But it wouldn't last: the agricultural depression in 1843 forced Janet to sell both, and by 1845, she had almost nothing left, declaring bankruptcy. She lived out her last days in Melbourne, where she lived with her daughter Agnes until her death in 1857.

These pearls, and her wedding ring, were the only things Janet kept after losing everything else, and served as reminders of the life she once had in Scotland with Andrew. Sad. Sorry. One of the brooches is on display in the museum's Eternity gallery.

Behind the (lack of) smiles

Everyone knows that portraits in national institutions have stories behind them. That's why they're in national collections, right? But behind the serious, posed faces dotting the walls of the National Portrait Gallery, there are a surprising number of love stories, especially from the eminent men. So let's hear a couple.

"Quite the romantic": Robert O'Hara Burke

He was a famous explorer who put his life on the line in the name of adventure and exploration, but Robert O'Hara Burke was rather more impulsive when it came to matters of the heart.

Best known as the leader of the ill-fated Burke and Willis expedition, he developed an obsession with the stage actress Julia Mathews after watching her perform in the late 1850s, when she was just a teenager. Despite being 21 years her senior, he plucked up his courage – which can't have gone far as he was, after all, a courageous explorer – and asked for her hand backstage in 1860, immediately before his departure on the expedition. She spurned him, of course, but he was not deterred and vowed to continue his pursuit. It was, in fact, his second proposal, as he had already followed her around Victoria as she performed, waiting for another chance.

His courage was most likely fuelled by the fact that Julia gave him a lock of her hair – a bold move of her own, and one certain to engender hope. A mixed signal at best?

As we now know, Burke set out on the ill-fated expedition and did not return. Once his fate became known in Melbourne, there was an overwhelming surge of public grief, and Julia manifested her own public grief, although there was suspicion at the time that her performance was a publicity stunt. She did, nevertheless, sing Rule Britannia and the national anthem in tribute to the explorers in Castlemaine in 1963.

"I've always liked the Burke and Matthews story, because it alternates between the salacious and the tragic, but also because it demonstrates the role that portraits played in the courtship process," gallery curator Joanna Gilmour says.

Not all of them died…

Talk about intrepid! Eminent explorer Douglas Mawson was intrepid in spaces in both life and love, it seems. Shortly before he set off on his famed Australasian Antarctic Expedition, he boldly got down on one knee and proposed to his beloved, Paquita Delprat, despite the overt disapproval of his prospective father-in-law. It seemed that a proposal from someone who was about to set out on the most daring and life-threatening mission of all – the 1911 Australasian Antarctic Expedition – was less than desirable for daddy's girl.

But while Mawson did come perilously close to death on the mission, he made it back alone and alive, discovering as he reached base that the ship that had been waiting for the explorers' return had already left. Another year trapped in Antarctica did not dim the affections of either party, with both waiting out the two years before being reunited.

Mawson eventually returned home in 1914 and married Paquita straight away, and went on to have a remarkably successful marriage, producing two daughters.

"Douglas and Paquita Mawson is an interesting counterpoint as it nearly ended tragically with Mawson coming close to death in Antarctica in 1913, but ended up a longstanding success," Ms Gilmour says.

See? Look closer at those bearded visages and stiff upper lips – there's passion and ardour in spades on those gallery walls.

The Knot

Excursions to art galleries have plenty of opportunities for romance – of course they do! But at the National Gallery of Australia, you barely even need to step inside the grounds for the romance to begin.

The leafy, misty Sculpture Garden is already one of Canberra's most popular wedding destinations, but one work in particular is an especially sought after backdrop for the grinning, post-nuptials shot.

Clement Meadmore's Virginia, better known around the traps as The Knot, is just that – a huge piece of steel looped gracefully – and counter-intuitively, given its size – into a knot. It's a big old knot that makes the perfect statement to any doubters out there: we tied it and now …we're…in front of it. see?

Australian artist Meadmore was born in Melbourne and moved to New York in the early 1960s, where he lived for the rest of his life. The Knot is typical of his style – geometric works on a massive scale. It was commissioned by the gallery directly from the artist in 1970, and he even came out here to install it, a boon for the gallery given Meadmore's loudly professed disdain for the Australian art scene. He once described making art in Australia as "like winking at a girl in a dark room". Burn!

But he did keep romance – of a sort – alive with this work, naming it after a woman, rather than giving it one of his customary "dynamic" monikers. His long-time friend Virginia Cuppaidge was a fellow ex-pat artist living in New York, having followed him there some years after he arrived.

Curator at the National Gallery Simeran Maxwell confirms that "maybe 80 per cent" of bridal couples choose Virginia as their backdrop.

"I think it makes a beautiful backdrop, because behind it is of course the lake, and the Carillon," she says.

"It's huge. he worked on a massive, massive scale. This work is 8 tonnes."

James Turrell's Skyspace

Meanwhile, around the near the entrance is another massive work that can't help but inspire romance – but of the more illicit kind.

James Turrell's Skyspace, specially commissioned by the gallery and titled Within Without, was installed in 2010 to mark the opening of the gallery's new wing and entrance. Almost immediately, it became clear that the place has a certain romantic pull: it is the unofficial No.1 pash-point for Canberra lovers (based on unscientific, anecdotal but probably not-far-off-the-mark research). For starters, it's free and open 24 hours, to allow visitors to get the full benefit of the work's prime viewing times – dawn and dusk. But it seems that many who make their way in are less interested in the stunning natural light shows than, um, each other.

Another feature of the Skyspace is that you can't see, from the outside, what's happening on the inside. Romantic! So how does the gallery know about all these trysts? Because, it being a premier artwork, the place has security cameras installed. In case it gets damaged! That's all. But tryst away, lovers! You couldn't do it in a more elegant and monumental place.

Incidentally, the space also has certain aural qualities, making it a great place to sing, which many visitors do. "It's about keeping the magic alive," says Maxwell, wryly.