Wedding Stamps 2010 - Here comes the bride

Wedding Stamp 2010

21/01/2010

‘Here comes the bride’.  We all know the stirring, rousing music that accompanies these words, music that has often been used to accompany a bride as she makes her way up the aisle.

This iconic piece of music originally came from the opera Lohengrin, composed by Richard Wagner and first performed in 1850.  In its original setting, it was played as Lohengrin, hero of the opera, enters the bridal chamber with his new wife Elsa.

This scene takes place after the hero and heroine have become man and wife, so how has this melody – the Bridal Chorus, G major, to give it its more formal title – become so closely associated with the final moments before the wedding actually takes place?

Eight years after its first performance in Lohengrin, the Bridal Chorus was used at a royal wedding ceremony.  The occasion was the marriage of Princess Victoria, daughter of Queen Victoria of Britain, to the German Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia.

After this momentous event, Wagner’s Bridal Chorus quickly became popular as matrimonial music.  Even now, it remains one of the most popular pieces to be played when a bride approaches the altar.

An Post’s Wedding stamps are also immensely popular with couples who are about to get married.  Lovingly illustrated by well-known Irish artist Cathy Dineen, this year’s stamp uses a pair of devoted lovebirds to embody the love and joy shared by the happy couple. Steve Simpson supplied the superb typography and layout for this beautiful representation of love and marriage, which is available in booklets of 10 self-adhesive stamps.

Products available with this issue:

• Weddings 2010 Self-adhesive Pair (1001SAS)  €1.10
• Weddings 2010 Self-adhesive Booklet (1001BK) €5.50
• Weddings 2010 FDC (1001FDC)    €1.55

The stamps are available from main Post Offices, through our online shop or from the GPO Philatelic Shop, Dublin 1.

 

 

 

                 

 

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