Nicholas and Alix of Hesse upon their engagement in 1894.

16.11.2014

This is a photo of Nicholas and Alix of Hesse upon their engagement in 1894.

The couple originally met in 1884 for Alix’s sister Ella’s wedding to Nicholas’ Uncle Sergei. Nicholas was sixteen and Alix was twelve.

They met again in 1889, when Nicholas was twenty-one and Alix was seventeen. At that time he decided that he wanted to marry her. He asked for her hand several times, only to be met with rejection because Alix felt that it was sinful to change her religion from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy.

The day after the wedding of Alix’s brother Ernie to Victoria Melita (Ducky) of Coburg, she finally consented.

Source: The Romanovs: Love, Power, and Tragedy