Glazunov composed this music in 1888 for piano four-hands, orchestrating it in October. He introduced it in 1889 at the Russian Symphony Concerts in his native city. For March 21, 1936, in his Music since 1900, the late Nicolas Slonimsky wrote this entry:

"Glazunov, the last great symphonist of old Russia, who wrote his first symphony at the age of 16; heir to the glorious national traditions of Balakirev, Borodin, and Rimsky-Korsakov; grandmaster of the arts of counterpoint, harmony and orchestration; noble defender of time-honored musical precepts of beauty, euphony and formal perfection; for many years beloved director of the St. Petersburg [later Leningrad] Conservatory, and teacher of a pleiad of Russian composers, dies at the age of 70 in Paris, where he settled after leaving Russia [in] 1928."

Despite this effusive citation, a neglect of Glazunov's symphonic oeuvre after 1930 paralleled Stravinsky's and Prokofiev's denigration of him in their respective writings. For Stravinsky in particular he was "the most disagreeable man I have ever met; but Glazunov was a time-to-time drunkard which redeemed him—from time to time; he would lock his door for two-week binges on Château Yquiem!" (Stravinsky, also a time-to-time drunkard, binged on whiskey with or without locking the door, and became obnoxious). For a more affectionate portrait of Rimsky's favorite pupil, one ought to read Solomon Volkov's collection of Shostakovich memoirs. Although the master detested the music of Scriabin, the cheeky young Prokofiev and the profoundly (r)evolutionary Stravinsky, he accepted Shostakovich's First Symphony as a diploma work when the latter was only 19, writing that his pupil was "a bright and outstanding creative talent...[with] a great deal of invention and imagination in his music."

Much the same had been said of an even younger Glazunov by Balakirev, the father figure of "The Mighty Handful" (a.k.a. "The Five"), who insisted that Rimsky accept the 13-year-old boy as his pupil. Pianist-composer Anton Rubinstein, despite his scorn for "The Five," presented Glazunov to Liszt, who opened important doors in Germany. At 24, the young lion made his conducting debut in Paris, and subsequently conquered Europe's major capitals as composer/conductor.

Back home in Russia, Tchaikovsky befriended him—-indeed, Glazunov dined with him the night Pyotr Il'yich drank what was, likelier than not, unboiled tap water. The wealthy industrialist Mitrofan Belayev was another admirer, who founded a music-publishing house for new Russian music (with headquarters in Leipzig) and funded St. Petersburg's Russian Symphony Concerts until his death in 1903, on the condition that a Glazunov work, preferably new, be played on every program!

In the first flush of success at home and abroad, he composed this Wedding Procession for his parents' silver anniversary, orchestrating the four-hand original between his first and second concerts as conductor of the Russian Symphony Concerts. An opening for brass and strings is properly ceremonious; they play brief tableaux, or vignettes. About two minutes into the music, a lyrical theme of balletic character is introduced. The brasses return, but the lyrical material prevails, becoming more and more intimate, with wind solos and harp, until it combines with the opening fanfare in a celebratory coda.

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