Although the name translates as wedding fountain, the Vermählungsbrunnen is actually a form of votive column: a monument erected in thanksgiving.Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705) promised to build the monument in honour of St. Joseph should Leopold’s son (also named Joseph) return safely and successfully from a siege of the stronghold at Landau during the war of the Spanish succession at the start of the 1700s.A wooden implementation of this promise eventually appeared in 1707, by which time Leopold’s son had succeeded him as Emperor Joseph I (1678-1711).As with the more famous plague column elsewhere in Vienna, a stone monument later replaced the earlier version.That more durable update appeared around 1732 under the aegis of Emperor Charles VI (he of Karlskirche fame), who succeeded his brother Joseph in 1711.