Their engagement, announced in May 1901, surprised family and friends, as Peter had shown no prior interest in women, and members of society assumed he was homosexual. At the age of 19, on , Olga married 33-year-old Peter. After the celebration the newlyweds left for the Oldenburg palace on the Field of Mars. Olga spent her wedding night alone in tears, while her husband left for a gambling club, returning the next morning. Their marriage remained unconsummated, and Olga suspected that Peter's ambitious mother had pushed him into proposing. Biographer Patricia Phenix thought Olga may have accepted his proposal to gain independence from her own mother, the Dowager Empress, or to avoid marriage into a foreign court. The couple initially lived with her in-laws Alexander Petrovich and Eugénie Maximilianovna of Oldenburg. The arrangement was not harmonious, as Peter's parents, both well known for their philanthropic work, berated their only son for his laziness. Olga took a dislike to her mother-in-law; although Eugénie, a close friend of the Dowager Empress, gave her daughter-in-law many gifts, including a ruby tiara that Napoleon had given as a present to Joséphine de Beauharnais. A few weeks after the wedding Olga and her husband travelled to Biarritz, France, from where they sailed to Sorrento, Italy, on a yacht loaned to them by King Edward VII of Great Britain.