In 2007, Anna found herself struggling through a period of depression. Although she enjoyed living in London and working in wine PR, she started to reevaluate. “My life wasn’t what I wanted any more,” she says.
She started making an effort to spend more time with friends and was beginning to feel more positive. One evening, she decided to go to the nightclub Plastic People in Shoreditch, east London, where DJ Theo Parrish was playing. Not long after she arrived, she spotted a tall, handsome man wearing a trilby. Feeling confident, she went to speak to him.
“I saw this striking woman and I really liked that she came over,” says Marcus. “If someone is brave enough to make an approach, I’m going to listen.”
At the time, he was working on a community project to support young people, and remembers feeling exhausted. “My flatmate had dragged me out. I’d been single for a few months and, although I wasn’t necessarily looking for a girlfriend, I was open to new adventures.”
“He told me he was from Suffolk and I asked if he’d ever caught crabs in Walberswick, which made him laugh,” says Anna. They kissed and exchanged numbers that night. “I came home to my flatmate and told her I’d met my future husband because we clicked instantly,” she says.
A week later they went on a date to the South Bank, but she left feeling less sure that he was the One. “I thought he was a bit arrogant. He’s quite opinionated and stubborn,” she says. Despite the shaky first date, she wanted to give him another chance and they met up in Stoke Newington for drinks and food, before heading back to Anna’s flat.
“I felt I’d met someone I could have something great with,” says Marcus. “Although we had a funny moment when I went to her house and there were plates in her bed. I thought her flat had been broken into,” he laughs. He soon worked out she was just messy, but it didn’t matter. “I loved her character and energy.”
On the second date, Anna realised she had misinterpreted his confidence as arrogance. “The conversation was really easy. We both have eclectic taste in music and love travelling and being outdoors,” she says. They took things slowly for the next few months, before planning a trip to Australia and Japan in January 2008. “It was brilliant,” says Marcus. That summer, she moved into his flat in south London.
At the start of 2010 they got engaged. “I was starring in Vinderella, a charity pantomime themed around wine which I became involved with through work,” says Anna. “After the show, Marcus got down on one knee and asked me to marry him.” They tied the knot in September that year on the Suffolk/Essex border. “We found a barn that someone had just opened for weddings,” says Anna. “Next to the barn there was a tiny 10th-century chapel. When we got home, we discovered some of my ancestors had been married in that church in the 18th century, so it was the ideal place for us to say our vows.”
In 2011, Anna was offered a job in Madrid and the couple moved there for eight years before returning to London. During that time, they had two children: Theo, born in 2013 and named after the DJ who was playing on the night they met, and Max, born in 2017. Anna now has a wine marketing and translation business, which she started in 2015, while Marcus manages a cultural and business programme for creative industries in London. They moved to rural Suffolk during the pandemic to be closer to family.
Marcus admires his wife’s resilience. “When we both roll up our sleeves and crack on, we make things happen. She is unfailingly kind and has buffed away my sharp edges, and made me a better person,” he says. “She has also introduced me to the finer things in life, like good wine and food.”
Anna says Marcus is one of the most intelligent people she knows. “I always find his wit and intellect stimulating,” she says. “He was fostered, then adopted, and has come from a difficult background. I really admire his drive and that helped me to start the business. We also make a great team as parents.”
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