Bavarian anthem and ringing of bells
Munich celebrates the Wittelsbach wedding
05/20/2023 11:53 am
Around five months after the civil wedding, Ludwig Prince of Bavaria and Sophie-Alexandra got married in Munich’s Theatinerkirche. Around 1000 guests came, including well-known faces.
The wedding of Ludwig Prince of Bavaria and his bride Sophie-Alexandra began in Munich’s Theatinerkirche – around five months after the civil wedding. The groom – great-great-grandson of the last Bavarian king Ludwig III. – appeared early in the morning with his mother Beatrix.
The bride arrived shortly before the wedding ceremony, all in white, in a long lace dress, holding a bouquet of lilies of the valley. Sophie-Alexandra was accompanied by flower children. Some of them also wore the long, delicate bridal veil.
The Munich Archbishop and Cardinal Reinhard Marx welcomed the bride to Odeonsplatz, after which she moved into the magnificent baroque church alongside her father Dorus Evekink – to the sounds of the Bavarian anthem and the ringing of bells.
Around 1,000 guests attended the Wittelsbach wedding, including many relatives and representatives of well-known families such as the Esterhazy, Habsburg, Saxe-Coburg, Fugger and Liechtenstein families. Politicians like Bavaria’s Prime Minister Markus Söder were also there. After the wedding, Franz Duke of Bavaria, head of the House of Wittelsbach, invites you to a reception at Nymphenburg Palace.
Söder ponders “suppleness”
In view of the wedding, Söder also pondered the adaptability as an heir to the nobility in Bavaria. The Wittelsbachers were first for Napoleon to become kings of Bavaria, then they were against Napoleon in order to be able to remain kings, said the CSU politician. He spoke of a certain “elasticity” of the former ruling family. “Maybe that’s passed into the genes of today’s politicians,” he joked.
The Wittelsbachs, who were the Bavarian dynasty until the end of the monarchy in 1918, were “ordinary majesties”, very artistic and not warlike, stressed Söder. The wedding builds on a “beautiful tradition”, according to Söder. It was “a beautiful day for all of us”.