14 years after her abduction, Elizabeth Smart shares how she found love

Elizabeth Smart looks on before an interview Tuesday, May 7, 2013, in Park City, Utah. Smart said she's elated to hear about three Cleveland women who escaped Monday after they disappeared a decade ago. Smart was kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City when she was 14. She was freed nine months later when she was found walking with her captor on a suburban street in March 2003. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

In the 14 years since Elizabeth Smart was kidnapped from her family home and rescued nine months later, she has made a career as an author and inspirational speaker, and got married and became a mom. She and husband Matthew Gilmour are expecting a son in April.

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“I got to know her as she truly is,” Gilmour, who is from Scotland and didn’t know who Smart was before meeting her, told PEOPLE. “The thing that attracted me the most to her — at the beginning and now — is how confident she is, especially considering everything she has been through.”

The two met in Paris on a Mormon mission trip and developed a deep friendship before getting engaged in 2012. Gilmour said he wasn’t nervous and simply said, “Elizabeth Ann Smart, will you marry me?”

“They’ve been very happy together. We’re just thrilled,” Smart’s father, Ed reacted to the engagement. “We’re looking forward to her moving on to this next stage and leading a very happy life.”

The couple planned to marry in Salt Lake City but decided to move the ceremony to Hawaii, the same place Smart’s family took her to recover after her rescue.

“Oahu is a very special place for me, very different than what I was used to,” Smart said at the time. “I guess you could say it was kind of a refuge.”

Surrounded by friends and family, Smart recalled that her wedding day was “the greatest day I could ever have imagined.”

“They are clearly besotted with each other, and it’s a wonderful thing to see,” Gilmour’s mother Lois said. “It’s a love story that has come true.”

The pair went on to spread their love by becoming parents. After giving birth to daughter Chloe two years ago, Smart is now awaiting the arrival of her baby boy, who is expected this spring.

RELATED: Soon-to-be mother of two Elizabeth Smart shares updates on her pregnancy with son due in April

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