A year and a half later, on hte autumn of 1893, Alix wrote to Nicholas telling him that although she loved him, a marriage between them was unthinkable because it was impossible for her to change religion. Nicholas was shocked. But things soon began to change; Ella, who was not obliged to change her religion when she got married, now was converted to Orthodox faith and told her sister about the similarities between Lutheranism and Orthodoxy. Meanwhile in Russia, Tsar Alexander became ill and weak. He felt his end was near and Nicholas was not prepared for assuming the throne. At last he decided to gave his permission to ask for Alix's hand.
The opportunity arrived soon. On April 1894, a royal wedding was celebrated in Coburg, between Alix's brother, Ernest, now Grand Duke of Hesse since his father's death, and his cousin Victoria Melita, daughter of Alfred, duke of Saxe Coburg, who was Queen Victoria's son. Nicholas attended to the wedding. During the first night in Coburg, Nicholas and Alix went to the opera. The next day, Nicholas asked Alix to talk to her alone. He told her that she could not denied to marry him. She broke down in tears exclaiming she could not because of her religion. During the wedding, Nicholas and Alix stole attention from the bride and groom; everyone was awaiting her final answer. That night her cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm, visited her in her room. He thought that a marriage between a German princess and the Russian Tsarevitch would favour a Russo-German alliance. Wilhelm told Alix that it was her duty to marry Nicholas, in order to maintain the peace of Europe. Alix finally decided to give up her religion and married Nicholas, convinced by Wilhelm and by the ideas Ella told her about Orthodoxy. On Apirl 20, 1894, she said yes to Nicholas in tears. The only obstacle was now Queen Victoria, but there was nothing she could do. When she was told, the Queen kissed them both.
Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig Holstein was sitting in her room, getting ready for lunch, whe her cousin and friend Alix stormed into her room and put her arms around her neck telling her: "I am going to marry Nicky".
Alix visited her Grandmother in Windsor; while she was there, Tsar Alexander III sent his own confessor, Father Yanishev, to instruct his future daughter in law in the Russian Orthodox faith. She also received the visit of her husband to be and while being together the couple charmed everybody. Before leaving Windsor, Alix and Nicholas attended as godparents to the christening of the newborn son of the Duke and Duchess of York, George and Mary, the future Edward VIII and afterwards Duke of Windsor..
When Alix discovered that Nicholas kept a dairy, she began to write little notes in it like: "I dreamt that I was loved, I woke and found it true, and thank God on my knees for it. True love is a gift which God has given-daily stronger, deeper, fuller, purer." Some days later Alix went to Darmstadt and Nicholas returned to Russia.
Alexander III was dying; he had been diagnosed an incurable nphritis. Nicholas was terrified; he didn't know how to be tsar. He sent a telegram to Alix begging her to come to Livadia in the Crimea, where the Tsar and his court were staying. Alix inmediately packed her things and began her journey to the country which from then on would be her homeland. Her sister Ella met her at Warsaw and continue the trip together. Nicholas met them at Simferopol and continue the journey in an open carriage to Livadia. The Tsar received his future daughter in law sitting on a chair; he was so weak that he was unable to stand. The dying Tsar kept everybody's attention in Livadia and Alix felt ignore. She was annoyed by the way Nicholas was treated by the officials in attendance and the doctors, who first reported to the Tsarina ignoring the precedence Nicholas had over his mother as heir to the throne. Then, Alix encouraged her future husband to forced the others to give him his right place; she wrote him: "...Show your own mind and don't let the others forget who you are." But Nicholas was not strong enough in chararcter to put his mother aside and things stayed the same.
Alexander III died on Thursday November 1, 1894. Empress Marie Feodorovna fainted into Alix's arms and Nicholas cried on the shoulder of his friend and brother in law (he was married to his sister Xenia) Grand Duke Alexander. "Sandro, what am I going to do?, he asked, what is going to happen to me, to you, to Xenia, to Alix, to mother, to all Russia? I am not prepared to be Tsar... I know nothing of the business of ruling". That same evening he was proclaimed Tsar Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias. The next day, Alix was confirmed in the Russian Orthodox Church and she was given the name of Alexandra Feodorvna and the rank and title of Grand Duchess. Nicholas and Alexandra had to be married as soon as possible. The ceremony took place on November 26, 1894 in the chapel of the Winter Palace. Her wedding dress was so complicated that it took almost an hour for Alexandra to put it on. It was a heavy Russian court dress of real silver whith an inmensely long train edged with ermine; the mantle on her shoulders was of cloth of gold, lined with ermine too. Marie Feodorovna put the diamond nuptial crown on Alexandra's head. Nicholas and Alexandra exchanged their wedding votes and two blessed golden crowns were put on their heads. They were married and now she was Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. The following morning, after their wedding night Alexandra wrote on Nicholas' dairy: "Never did I believe there could be such utter happiness in this world, such a feeling of unity between two mortal beings. I love you -those three words have my life in them."
The first months after her marriage were not easy for Alexandra. The Imperial couple lived at Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, sharing residence with the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, whom which Alexandra had some differences for reasons of precedency. According with the Russian protocol of the court, the Dowager Empress had precedency over the reigning Tsarina and that upset Alexandra. Besides, Marie Feodorovna refused to give her some jewels that, accordig to established costumes, belonged to the Tsarina, so the new Empress was infuriated against her mother in law. From then on both Empresses spoke to each other in polite but distant terms.
Alexandra didn't like St. Petersburg' social life. The society ladies described her as beautiful with almost Greek features but shy, not friendly, and being not a brilliant conversationalist. She was becoming unpopular among the Russian society.
Alexandra's influence over her husband began to arise since their first months of marriage. It was the costum that at the accension of a new tsar, groups of representatives of zemstvos (small bodies of provincial officials) sent messages of support and loyalty to the new sovereign. One of these zemstvos, the Tver Zemstvo, included in its message a petition to participate in internal administration matters. When Nicholas received personally the representatives of the Tver Zemstvo, he said he had no intention of allowing the zenstvos to intervene on administrative affairs and that he should mantain up the principle of autocracy as his father had. Nicholas attitude was a shock for everyone since people expected that he would give a democrative turn to his father's policy It was Alexandra who advised him about this matter; she believed in the Tsar's right of autocracy and that she understood Russia's political situation better than her husband.
