1667 Marching Bride

The other day I heard a radio ad for an upcoming bridal fair. This is the time of year for the advanced immense planning necessary to pull off one of the largest events most families will ever face. Enormous amounts of time, effort, and money are spent for an affair whose pictures are 30% likely to be tossed out in the subsequent ten years.
One year of planning for a wedding and ten years of planning for a divorce. It all balances out.
What caught my ear was the song they played in the ad. It was "Here Comes the Bride." And I suddenly wondered—What are the real words to Here Comes the Bride? We all remember the words we used in grade school, "Here comes the bride, all fat and wide..." etc. But what are the real ones?
Well you'll have to look them up. Suffice it to say they're too long to go into here, and they don't translate well from the original German.
Yes German. Turns out they came from a little ditty by the great German opera guy Wagner. From his opera Lohengrin, filled with valor, battle, intrigue and an occasional burst of anti-Semitism. It's actually called the "Bridal Chorus."
One phrase got me. "Siegreicher Mut, Minne und Glück
eint euch in Treue zum seligsten Paar."
That German, such a romantic sounding language.
By the way, that means, "Triumphant courage, love and happiness, join you in faith as the happiest of couples."
And that's an order.
"Triumphant courage," huh, sounds like the opera couple knew what they were getting into. I just like that most people call the bride's graceful promenade a wedding march. Sounds so militaristic. From marital planning to martial art.
Marching off to wedded bliss...
America, ya gotta love it.