Which princess married Crown Prince Ludwig before the first Oktoberfest?

The princess who married Crown Prince Ludwig before the first Oktoberfest was Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

Therese married Ludwig, the Bavarian crown prince, in Munich on 12 October 1810. Their wedding celebrations included a public horse race on 17 October, held outside Munich near the Sendlinger Tor. That celebration is regarded as the origin of Oktoberfest.

The festival grounds were later named Theresienwiese—literally, “Therese’s meadow”—in honour of the bride. The name survives in the Munich site’s familiar nickname, the Wiesn. Because the celebrations were repeated the following year, the one-time royal wedding event developed into an annual public festival.

A common mix-up is to identify Therese with another famous Bavarian royal, Elisabeth of Austria, better known as Sisi. Elisabeth was born decades later and married Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. Therese became Queen of Bavaria in 1825, when Ludwig succeeded to the throne.