“The Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich came one day to my mother to discuss the proposed marriage between his daughter Irina and myself. I was happy, for it answered my secret aspirations. I could not forget the young stranger I had met on a walk on the Crimean road. From that day on, I knew it was my destiny. Just a little girl turned into a dazzlingly beautiful young lady. She was restrained because of shyness, but restraint added to her charm, surrounded by mystery. Compared to this new experience, all my previous hobbies had been miserable. I understood the harmony of true feeling, ” Felix recalled.

 
Felix and Irina got married on February 22, 1914, in St. Petersburg, in the chapel of the Anichkov Palace. After the wedding the young couple left on their honeymoon. “But the newspapers followed us, and there was no peace for us anywhere, ” wrote Yusupov.

 
World War I caught the Yusupovs on their journey. From London, they went to their relatives in Kissingen, and there, they were detained as prisoners of war until the end of the war by order of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Irina unsuccessfully sought permission to return to Russia from her cousin, the Kaiser’s daughter-in-law. Prince Yusupov Sr. engaged a Spanish ambassador as a diplomatic mediator. In the course of diplomatic negotiations with the Minister of Foreign Affairs Gottlieb von Jagow an agreement was reached: a special train for members of the embassy and other Russian citizens wishing to leave Germany was made available to the Russian ambassador. When Emperor Wilhelm was informed of the Yusupovs’ flight, he ordered their arrest at the border, but the order was too late. The Yusupovs managed to cross the border into neutral Denmark.