told that he wished to marry her. Pressed by her aunt to give a speedy answer, Maria agreed to the prince's proposal and found herself engaged to a man she had known for only few hours. The official betrothal was announced in June 1907 at Peterhof palace. Maria Pavlovna wrote later that she felt her aunt had rushed her into the marriage. However, at the time she enjoyed the attention and was eager to escape from the nursery. "Then we will be able to travel together," she wrote to Wilhelm after their engagement. "And to live just as we wish and to suit ourselves. I'm looking forward to a wonderful life – a life full of love and happiness, just as you described to me in your last letters." The marriage had positive political and diplomatic implications for both Russia and Sweden and Tsar Nicholas II gave his consent. Grand Duke Paul was not consulted. From Peterhof, Maria Pavlovna went to Grand Duchess Elisabeth's rural estate, Ilinskoe, near Moscow, where Wilhelm joined them for a month before he left on a cruise to America. The young couple maintained their intimacy through letters. Maria imagined herself in love: "It’s lovely to have somebody, even far away, who love you more than anything and whom you love more than everybody on earth“, she wrote to him. In October, Wilhelm returned to Russia joining Grand Duchess Maria and her brother Dimitri who introduced the Swedish prince to their father, Grand Duke Paul, who was permitted to come back to Russia for his daughter's wedding set to take place after she turned eighteen the next April. At Wilhelm's departure, Maria wrote to him: " I love you, so much with every day, every hour more and more. I wish it were April now, how lovely it would be". In her book of memoirs, written more than 20 years later, the grand duchess made different claims: "I was using Wilhelm, in a sense, only to obtain my freedom". As the wedding day approached, she began to have doubts and wished to break off the engagement, but Princess Irene of Hesse who was visiting her sister, Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, persuaded her otherwise. Soon Maria Pavlovna was once again looking forward with enthusiasm to a new life. The wedding took place at Tsarskoye Selo on . Swedish princess After a honeymoon in Germany, Italy and France,