The wars involving Mecklenburg forced her father to send Anna Maria and her two older brothers, Christian Louis and Karl, first to Sweden and shortly afterwards to Denmark, to the court of Dowager Queen Sophia (born Duchess of Mecklenburg-Güstrow). In 1629 Anna Maria was sent to Saxony with Dowager Electress Hedwig, to the latter's dower state, Castle Lichtenberg near Prettin, where she was educated. After Hedwig's death in 1642, Anna Maria returned to Schwerin, where she was reunited with her father, her mother having died in 1634. She also probably then met for the first time her stepmother, Marie Katharina of Brunswick-Dannenberg, and her three surviving half-siblings. Anna Maria was her father's favorite child as demonstrated by the cordial, even affectionate tone of the letters that they wrote to each other.
On 23 November 1647, in Schwerin, Anna Maria married Augustus, second surviving son of Johann Georg I, Elector of Saxony, and moved with her husband to Halle, the main city of his domains as Administrator of the Archbishopric of Magdeburg. During her marriage, she bore twelve children, including three daughters who died in infancy in 1663.
On 22 April 1657 her husband, by the terms of his father's will, received the towns of Weissenfels and Querfurt as his own Duchy, and hence Anna Maria became Duchess consort of Saxe-Weissenfels.
Anna Maria died on 11 December 1669 in Halle and was buried in a magnificent coffin in the Schloss Neu-Augustusburg in Weissenfels. Her three infant daughters who had been buried in the Halle Cathedral were reinterred with her.
Issue
In Schwerin on 23 November 1647 Anna Maria married Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels. They had twelve children:
Johann Adolf I (b. Halle, 2 November 1649 - d. Weissenfels, 24 May 1697).
August (b. Halle, 3 December 1650 - d. Halle, 11 August 1674), Provost of Magdeburg; married on 25 August 1673 to Charlotte of Hesse-Eschwege. Their only son was stillborn (24 April 1674).
Christian (b. Halle, 25 January 1652 - killed in action at Mainz, 24 August 1689), General Field Marshal of the Saxon Electoral Army.
Anna Maria (b. Halle, 28 February 1653 - d. Halle, 17 February 1671).
Dirk Schleinert. "Anna Maria von Mecklenburg (1627-1669) und August von Sachsen (1614-1680) und die Begründung des Hauses Sachsen-Weißenfels. Dynastische Beziehungen zwischen Mecklenburg und Kursachsen im 17. Jahrhundert", in Mecklenburgische Jahrbücher 123 (2008), 123-157.
Klaus Gondermann. Die Mitglieder der Fruchtbringenden Gesellschaft 1617-1650: 527 Biographien. Leipzig 1985.
300 Jahre Schloß Neu-Augustusburg, 1660–1694 - Residenz der Herzöge von Sachsen-Weißenfels. Festschrift. Weissenfels (1994).
Johann Christoph Dreyhaupt. Beschreibung des ... Saal-Creyses, insonderheit der Städte Halle. Halle 1749/1751 (so-called Dreyhaupt-Chronik).
^See: Roswitha Jacobsen, Die Tagebücher 1667-1686: Kommentar und Register, Michigan 2003, ISBN3-7400-1033-9; Karl Kehrbach, Monumenta Germaniae paedagogica, Volume 52, Michigan 2007; B. Touchnitz, Archiv für die Sächsische Geschichte, Volume 5, Princeton 1879; Martina Schattkowsky, Witwenschaft in der frühen Neuzeit: fürstliche und adlige Witwen zwischen Fremd- und Selbstbestimmung - Volume 6 of Schriften zur sächsischen Geschichte und Volkskunde, Leipzig 2003, ISBN3-936522-79-0; Julius Richter, Das Erziehungswesen am Hofe der Wettiner Albertinischer (Haupt-)Linie - Volume 52 of Monumenta Germaniae paedagogica, 1913