During the coronation of Nicholas I in 1826, 15-year-old Zinaida caught the eye of 32-year-old widower Boris Nikolaevich Yusupov, known as Borinka to intimates, who became determined to marry her.

The wedding was somewhat chaotic, as Boris had to return home to collect his father's blessing and Zinaida Ivanovna dropped the ring during the ceremony and it could not be relocated.

Alexander Turgenev called her a "chained Zephyr" and said "She is still a piece of poetry, while her husband resembles despicable proze.

Prince Meshchersky called her "one of Saint Peterburg's lionesses", while Countess Dolly de Ficquelmont gave the following description: "tall, thin, with a charming waist and a perfectly shaped head.

"[2] In his memoirs, Zinaida's great-grandson Felix Yusupov also described "a romantic attachment for a young revolutionary whom she followed to Finland where he was interned in the Sveaborg Fortress.

He also stated that in 1925, Bolsheviks discovered a hidden room behind Zinaida's bedroom in her house in Paris, which contained a coffin and a male skeleton.

At a ball there, she met Louis Charles Honoré Chauveau (1829–1889), a staff captain of the National Guard twenty years her junior.

To make the marriage seem more appropriate, Zinaida procured the titles of Count of Chauveau and Marquis de Serre for her new husband.

In 1891, Princess Zinaida sold the Château de Keriolet to the French government on the condition that it would be turned into a museum.

Her great-grandson Felix remembered her:I can see her now, enthroned majestically in a huge armchair, the back of which was decorated with three coronets, the emblems of her triple rank as princess, marchioness, and countess.

Therefore, when Zinaida died two years later, she left all her jewels to her granddaughter and namesake, her Moscow residences to her great-grandson Felix and her house in Paris to his brother Nicholas Yusupov (1883–1908).