renouncing their rights to the throne. Although Irina was very distant in the line of succession, she had to comply with this regulation before marrying me; but it did not seem to worry her very much." It was the society wedding of the year and the last such occasion in Russian society before World War I. Irina wore a 20th-century dress rather than the traditional court dress in which other Romanov brides had married, as she was a princess of the Imperial House, not a Grand Duchess. She wore a diamond and rock-crystal tiara that had been commissioned from Cartier and a lace veil that had belonged to Marie Antoinette. Guests at the wedding commented on what an attractive couple Felix and Irina made: "What an amazing couple–they were so attractive. What bearing! What breeding!" said one guest. Irina was given away by her uncle, Nicholas II, and his wedding present to her was a bag of 29 uncut diamonds, ranging from three to seven carats. Irina and Felix also received a large assortment of precious gems from other wedding guests. They later managed to take many of these gems out of the country following the Russian Revolution of 1917 to use them to provide a living in exile. World War I The Yusupovs were on their honeymoon in Europe and the Middle East when World War I broke out. They were briefly detained in Berlin after the outbreak of hostilities. Irina asked her first cousin, Crown Princess Cecilie of Prussia to intervene with her father-in-law, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who refused to permit them to leave, but offered them a choice of three country estates to live in for the duration of the war. Felix's father appealed to the Spanish ambassador and won permission for them to return to Russia via neutral Denmark to Finland and from there to Petrograd. Upon leaving they were belittled by the German people who called them "Russian pigs" and other names. Felix converted a wing of his Moika Palace into a hospital for wounded soldiers but avoided entering military service himself by taking advantage of a law exempting only-sons from serving in the war. He entered the Cadet Corps and took an officer's training course but had no intention of joining a regiment. Irina's first cousin, Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna, to whom she had been close when they were girls, was disdainful of Felix: