After all the bad dates, and some heartache, loneliness and despair, Amy Bonella finally did it.

She got married.

On March 3, Bonella, 32, and her new husband, Shane, 35, were wed in the Salt Lake Temple. It was a longed-for milestone and the "perfect" day, Bonella said. "If I could choose to relive a moment in my life, that would be the day, my wedding day," she said.

They had met online about a year before they married. It was a first marriage for both.

As Latter-day Saints prepare to hear from their top leaders during the 177th Annual General Conference this weekend, marriage will likely be among the topics du jour. But the demographics of the Bonellas' marriage illustrate something of a cultural shift for young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, many of whom are delaying marriage longer than previous generations.

While no known published studies have been done about the age of first marriage in the LDS faith, both local LDS leaders and singles say more and more young Latter-day Saints are getting married at an older age.

The average age of first marriage for LDS Church members is approximately 23, said Jason Carroll, assistant professor of marriage, family and human development at Brigham Young University.

That may not sound old, but the LDS Church teaches that marriage and family are an important part of progression both now and in the afterlife. Young adults in the faith traditionally married as early as 18 during the last half of the 20th century.

Nationally, the average age of first marriage jumped from 20 for females and 23 for males in 1960 to 25 and 27 in 2000, respectively, according to the most recent Census data.

If the present trend continues, some national demographers believe that fewer than 85 percent of current young adults will ever marry, according to the National Marriage Project at Rutgers University.

The study found that nationally, men don't commit because they want to avoid divorce and want to enjoy the single life. Foremost, it said the availability of sex outside the bond of marriage and enjoying the "benefits of having a wife by cohabitating" were the top reasons for delaying the commitment to marry.

No statistics about cohabitation rates are available for Latter-day Saints, who are taught abstinence before marriage and fidelity afterward.

"By and large, except for a few exceptions, an LDS emphasis on marriage and family during young adulthood is unique," both within society at large and in faith traditions as a whole, Carroll said.

For some Latter-day Saints like Bonella, the delay in marrying was not for a lack of trying. But church leaders say many singles appear to be following national trends of delaying marriage by avoiding traditional dates, such as a one-on-one evening, where a man calls a woman and asks her out.