Following a series of dynastic alliances, Maria Theresa was betrothed to the Count of Artois, the youngest grandson of the reigning Louis XV of France and his popular wife, Queen Marie Leczinska.

Her marriage was arranged as a part of a series of Franco-Savoyard dynastic marriages taking place in a time span of eight years: after the wedding between her cousin Princess Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy-Carignano and Louis Alexandre, Prince of Lamballe, and the wedding between her elder sister Marie Joséphine of Savoy and Louis Stanislas, Count of Provence in 1771, Maria Teresa was married to the Count of Artois (future King Charles X of France) in 1773, and her eldest brother Prince Charles Emmanuel of Savoy (the future King of Sardinia) was married to her sister-in-law Princess Clotilde of France in 1775.

Maria Theresa married the Count in a proxy ceremony at the Palazzina di caccia of Stupinigi before she crossed the bridge of Beauvoisin between Savoy and France, where she was turned over by her Italian retinue to her French entourage, after which her official marriage took place at the Palace of Versailles on 16 November 1773.

As her husband was the grandson of a king, the newly named Marie Thérèse held the rank of granddaughter of France, and was commonly referred to by the simple style Madame la comtesse d'Artois.

[1] Florimond Claude, Comte de Mercy-Argenteau, who corresponded with Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa regarding Marie Antoinette, said that she was silent and interested in absolutely nothing.

[2] The brother of Marie Antoinette, Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, said of her during his visit to France in 1777 that she was the only one in the royal family "to give birth to children, but is in all other aspects a complete idiot.

Roughly a year after Maria Theresa's arrival at Versailles, she became pregnant with her first child, Louis Antoine, Duke of Angoulême: He was the first child of the new royal generation, which was an important event, as there was at that point concern for the succession because the marriage of both the King as well as that of the first of his brothers, the Count of Provence, were childless, and the birth was reportedly stressful to Marie Antoinette, at the time anxious for the consummation of her marriage to take place and concerned for her lack of children.

Prior to the meeting of the Estates General, every member of the Royal Family was publicly mocked by libelous verses, in which Maria Theresa was claimed to have given birth to an illegitimate child.