The piece
Mendelssohn wrote the Wedding March in 1843 for his incidental music to Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, staged in Potsdam before the King of Prussia: it accompanies the three weddings at the end of the play. It has been the recessional of countless weddings since that of Princess Victoria in 1858. The version played here is the one Mendelssohn arranged himself for the piano, published in Leipzig by Breitkopf & Härtel, checked note by note against that edition, with its repeats.
It opens with a trumpet call in triplets, then the theme arrives in broad ff chords. Full chords are played with the weight of the arm rather than the fingers alone: keep the wrist supple between chords. The middle trio, in G major, asks for crisp dotted rhythms, the sixteenth short, without hurrying. The ending brings back the theme, a long trill and three C major chords.
