Russia holds first "royal wedding" since Bolshevik Revolution

Russia's

first

royal

wedding

abroad since the country's last tsar was executed more than a century ago is evoking memories both good and bad. It happened this week in St. Petersburg. CBS' MTS Tayeb has the

royal

story, opulent and yes ostentatious, but that was perhaps the point of Russia's

first

royal

wedding

. wedding in 127 years, although the crowns never touched the heads of the self-proclaimed grand duke george mikhailovich Romanov, who was raised in france, and his italian fiancée, rebecca virginia bettalini, the ceremony at saint isaac cathedral in the city of saint petersburg, where they exchanged fabergé The rings were designated for the couple who chose to marry in the former imperial capital because it was the first place in Russia where the family had returned after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

St. Petersburg is also where the darkest chapter The Romanov family began to unravel their centuries-long rule over Russia came to a bloody end there after the Bolshevik

revolution

s of 1917. King Nicholas II, his wife and five children, were later brutally executed, ushering in the communist era. , but this lavish wedding attended by approximately 1,500 people was a decidedly happy celebration. affair with a guest list so glittering that it included queens, princes and billionaires, but not Vladimir Putin. A spokesman for the Russian president said this marriage does not belong on our agenda in any way, but the legacy of the Romanovs continues to divide Russians, including over whether unions like this should still be celebrated at this time CBS News London