text: First years By early fall, Sophie fell in love with her future husband. "I cannot go to bed, my dear and adored Prince, without telling you once again that I love and adore you madly," she wrote to Paul.  Soon after arriving at St Petersburg, she converted to the Russian Orthodox Church, took the name "Maria Feodorovna," and was granted the title Grand Duchess of Russia, with the style Imperial Highness. The wedding took place on 26 September 1776. Despite Paul's difficult and often tyrannical character, Maria Feodorovna never changed her feelings. Her even temper and patience were instrumental in knowing how to deal with a difficult husband and moderate the extreme elements in his character. She wrote to a friend: "My dear husband is a perfect angel and I love him to distraction."
  As Grand Duchess, Maria Feodorovna possessed such parsimony that she was prepared to spend the whole day in full dress without fatigue and implacably imposed the same burden on her entourage. She didn't hesitate to take over the clothes of her husband's first wife and dispute with her ladies-in-waiting the defunct Natalia's slippers. At the beginning, Catherine II was enchanted with her daughter-in-law, about whom she wrote to a friend: "I confess to you that I am infatuated with this charming Princess, but literally infatuated. She is precisely what one would have wished: the figure of a nymph, a lily and rose complexion, the loveliest skin in the world, tall and well built; she is grateful; sweetness, kindnesses and innocence are reflected in her face."