In October 1894, George's maternal uncle-by-marriage, Tsar Alexander III of Russia, died. At the request of his father, "out of respect for poor dear Uncle Sasha's memory", George joined his parents in St Petersburg for the funeral. He and his parents remained in Russia for the wedding a week later of the new Russian emperor, his cousin Nicholas II, to another one of George's first cousins, Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, who had once been considered as a potential bride for George's elder brother.