It's official: Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has signed the country's equal marriage law.

Equal marriage passed through the lower house in the German Parliament last month, after Chancellor Angela Merkel caved in to demands from opposition parties.

Merkel had block equal marriage for more than a decade, but she reversed her long-standing policy to allowed her own MPs to vote with their conscience on the issue.

Though Merkel still cast her own vote against the law, it gathered enough support to sail through Parliament by a vote of 393-29