On 1 July 1817 Frances Waddington married Baron Bunsen in the chapel of the Palazzo Savelli, home of his friend and mentor Barthold Georg Niebuhr.
The couple had ten children, five sons and five daughters, including the biblical scholar Ernest Christian Ludwig de Bunsen.
[3] In 1823 her husband succeeded Niebuhr as Prussian minister to the Vatican and the couple remained in Rome for twenty two until 1838, living in the Palazzo Caffarelli on the Capitol.
[2] As in Rome, Frances von Bunsen was active in supporting her husband's career, hosting many guests from a wide social and cultural network at their home in Carlton Terrace in London.
She moved to Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg, Germany where she looked after the children of her late daughter Theodora, Baroness von Ungern Sternbergwhere.