A stage cue became a wedding tradition
Felix Mendelssohn’s famous Wedding March was not written for a real bride and groom. It was part of his incidental music for Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, composed to accompany a stage production. In the play, the march sounds during the final act, as the lovers’ weddings are celebrated.
That setting was a comic fairy-tale world, complete with a troupe of amateur actors and Bottom, whose head is magically transformed into a donkey’s. The music’s original job was theatrical: to give a wedding procession a grand, ceremonial entrance.
The royal choice that changed its job
In 1858, Princess Victoria—the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria—married Prince Friedrich of Prussia and chose Mendelssohn’s march for her wedding. The choice gave the music a high-profile real-world use, far removed from its playful Shakespearean setting. Other couples and ceremonies helped carry it into wedding practice, where it became a familiar choice for a bride’s entrance.
The familiar tradition often pairs Mendelssohn’s march, usually played as the bride enters, with Wagner’s “Bridal Chorus,” commonly used as the recessional. Neither piece began as a general-purpose wedding standard: each came from a work for the stage. Mendelssohn’s second act is especially striking—the music still announces a procession, but the audience has changed from theatergoers watching a fairy-tale comedy to guests welcoming a real couple.
