ST. PETERSBURG, October 1. /TASS/. Georgy Romanov, a descendant of the House of Romanovs, and his wife, Italian citizen Rebecca Bettarini, wed in St. Petersburg’s Saint Isaac’s Cathedral Friday.

According to the Russian Imperial House, this is the first wedding of a House representative to take place in Russia in over 100 years. Romanov and Bettarini — who converted to Orthodox Christianity and was christened Viktoria Romanovna in July 2020 — officially registered their marriage in a Moscow registry office in late September.

The ceremony was attended by several hundred guests from several countries, including Duke Michael of Wuerttemberg, Duke of Anjour Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, the last king of Bulgaria Simeon Borisov von Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Joachim Louis Napoleon Murat, Prince Philipp and Princess Isabelle of Lichtenstein, and others.

Georgy Mikhailovich Romanov is a son and an heir of the Russian Imperial House head Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, the only child of Vladimir Kirillovich Romanov and Duchess Leonida Georgiyevna Bagration of Mukhrani. The legitimacy of Maria Vladimirovna’s title of Grand Duchess is challenged by the other line of descendants of House Romanov, who trace their bloodline to Emperor Nicholas I’s grandson, Grand Duke Nikolay Nikolayevich.