What happened when we relived our car crash wedding night nearly three decades later in the same hotel room… Inspired by the West End’s Plaza Suite, ANNA MAXTED and her husband Phil return to the scene of their nuptials

My husband and I are back in our wedding night suite after nearly 27 years of marriage. It should be cause for celebration, and I am smiling.

However, inside I feel a gnawing sense of trepidation. The decor has changed — it’s funkier, modern — but it still takes me back.

Last time we were in Room 345, at St Ermin’s Hotel in Central London, in the autumn of 1997, Phil was 24 and I was 27. I was in a beautiful cream satin dress, and he wore a smart bespoke suit.

We had been Mr and Mrs for six hours by the time we let ourselves inside. You would imagine we couldn’t race up the stairs quick enough, breathless with excitement about our new life together. But all was not well between us. In fact, it had never been worse.

So why on Earth would we want to return?

Our inspiration is Hollywood power couple Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick, who are currently starring in Plaza Suite, the 1960s three-act comic play by Neil Simon being staged at the Savoy Theatre in London’s West End.

Set in the grand New York hotel, the first act shows a middle-aged couple returning to their wedding-night room for their anniversary, which quickly turns sour as the wife realises her husband is having an affair.

Plaza Suite is certainly no paean to marriage. It’s a study of all that can go wrong with it. And ours seemed to be going wrong sooner than most.

We’d chosen St Ermin’s for our ceremony, reception and wedding night because it felt so romantic.

Originally a Victorian mansion block, the tiered white balustrades in its lobby reminded me of the marzipan on a wedding cake. The patterned carpet was a little crazy looking, but its vast chandeliers twinkled, and there was a stately grandeur to the place.

It was useful to have our wedding night accommodation on site. I have a vague memory of my grand arrival — which entailed dodging Phil (who was reportedly somewhere in the vicinity) and zipping upstairs to perfect my lipstick before the ceremony, my best ladies in close attendance.

I had no idea my husband-to-be was having serious concerns about saying ‘I do’. I certainly couldn’t have predicted it; we were obsessed with each other, weren’t we?

We’d met through work, two years earlier. Though he and I were very different, there was an instant recognition that we were kindred spirits.

I knew within a month, as did he, that we’d marry. And that our love would last.

He’d moved in with me within a few months, proposing ten months later with flowers sent to my office and the note: ‘Marry me?’ When I returned home, he’d papered the walls of our flat with red, pink and purple paper hearts.

The wedding itself was unorthodox and fun. It was officiated by a registrar and I made my entrance to Look In My Eyes by The Chantels. (Great tune, slightly aggressive.) ‘Love is a burning thing!’ sang Johnny Cash as we were pronounced man and wife. I loved it, although, disconcertingly, after our first dance, it was beginning to dawn on me that my new husband and I weren’t emotionally attuned. I was elated. But I was elated all by myself.

Phil looked so green and ill and breathless, I took him into a side-room. ‘We’re married!’ I cried, to try to elicit some joy.

He looked at me, blankly, trying to breathe. Perhaps he muttered something about being a little hungover.

During the evening, Phil kept disappearing. At one point, I was swishing my netted skirts about in an approximation of dancing, as a circle of female friends and relatives skipped around me. I felt awkward, idiotic and out of place. ‘Why am I all by myself at my own wedding?’ I thought, and went to find Phil.

Our guests finally left. The second we reached the suite where we were spending the night, Phil crashed out. I think, if he had been sober, he might have run away.

I took off my big dress, by myself, with difficulty, got into bed and lay staring dead-eyed at the ceiling.

I was too shocked and confused to cry. How do you go from wild love to being odd and distant? I felt crushed, foolish and entirely alone.

I thought back to earlier in the day, being driven to the hotel in a shiny white bridal car. A cyclist, waiting at the lights, had mouthed: ‘You look beautiful.’ And now. So what?

Somehow, Phil did rally, at least for our honeymoon in Thailand. Though, amid all the beaming beach photos, there’s one of me sitting in our suite, looking slightly tear-stained, clutching a fluffy soft toy rabbit like a child. My gosh, we were barely adults, and were so out of our depth.

I did ask Phil what was wrong. But I don’t actually think he knew, and he certainly couldn’t tell me.

He said he loved me. I believed him — I had two years of evidence. He just wasn’t himself.

Married life was a lot harder than I’d imagined. And much of that was down to me. The year before we wed, my father had died.

Phil had assumed the role of bereavement counsellor and family protector. For a time, I was ill with grief; too focused on my own sadness to see that Phil was also struggling.

He began drinking to cope and, while we could discuss anything, we couldn’t talk about this. And anyway, there was a wedding to plan.

In the following year, Phil was frequently away for work, writing travel adventure stories for a magazine. The more dangerous and risky, the better. I bought two kittens, stayed at home and hoped he wouldn’t die.

Once, after disappearing for an early flight, he left me a record to play: Always On My Mind, sung by Elvis. (‘Maybe I didn’t treat you, Quite as good as I should’ve’). I hated the song, the stupid sentiment, and couldn’t listen to it.

We hadn’t even reached our first anniversary when Phil told me: ‘I love you, but I think I’m going to leave you.’ I was panicked and frightened — and slightly embarrassed, given how much my mother had paid for our wedding — but stubbornly sure, despite all apparent evidence to the contrary, that Phil and I were meant to be together.

Phil saw his GP. The kindly psychiatrist he was referred to also offered joint therapy. Looking back, he saved us. Good therapy helps you understand why you feel and behave as you do. It can make you a better partner, as you stop blaming your other half for the ills they aren’t actually responsible for.

But even with medication, depression doesn’t just vanish, and we had a lonely few years.

We both worked from home and a friend exclaimed that we must be leaping into bed non-stop. Alas, in our house, depression was not an aphrodisiac. Phil’s depression worsened after our first son was born, around two years later. This was inconvenient, because I’d been counting on him to know exactly what to do — he’d always been a fan of babies, while I’d studiously avoided them.

But, to my dismay, he was as clueless as I was. That didn’t stop us having two more — our boys are now 21, 19 and 17.

Returning to our wedding suite, aged 51 and 54, we marvel at how hard it was, how exhausting, how we struggled and muddled through.

There are aspects of this era that are painful to recall — depression is a fierce and frightening foe. We discuss how our families supported us, as did the friends we let in. We didn’t battle alone.

Nearly 30 years on, we are still together, still in love and in good, hard-won mental health — and it feels like a miracle.

Through learning how to stay together and be loving, even when we absolutely didn’t feel loving, we’ve grown much more resilient.

We’re also calmer, more confident and wiser. As a result, our marriage is solid — far more so than it was at its shaky start.

As we curl up together under the crisp, white hotel sheets and talk, it’s a shock to realise that all Phil remembers of those early years of marriage and parenthood is his dark struggle with his mental health.

What he forgets is that, even at his lowest, he tried to support me. He’d push our wakeful baby around the woods in the early dawn sun while I slept. He cooked me beautiful dinners. We still laughed. We limped along, but we were a team.

I remind him of this, and he squeezes my hand.

We both bumblingly grew into parenthood. Phil found the enormous strength to recover and get well. It took a good five years for him to regain his health, but it was so wonderful to have him back — it means we don’t take each other for granted. We so nearly lost it all. And I’m proud of the father that Phil is to our three boys — they all adore him.

Phil was nervous to go back to St Ermin’s, and so was I. I felt unexpectedly emotional thinking about our time as newlyweds — perhaps because we both silently suffered and blamed ourselves. We felt helpless, hopeless, but also undeserving of help.

But over the course of our tender weekend there, it feels as though something has been resolved, or maybe absolved. Discussing all this is gut-twisting, but ultimately rewarding. We acknowledge that we’re closer now, because our bond was forged in fire.

It’s only as I’ve got older that I realise there is no shame in making mistakes, in struggling mentally, in seeking support. Love is not a given, it isn’t passive; it is a doing word, and sometimes you have to fight for it.

That’s not to say we don’t ever argue or enrage each other. But in the early days when we argued, neither of us was listening to the other — we were too wrapped up in our own heads.

These days, our rows are an effective form of communication, which can fast-track understanding. It’s also healthy to clash now and then, and helps to keep the spark alive.

Importantly, we still amuse and surprise each other — life is never boring. And after all these years — even though he’s still irreverent and impulsive, and I’m more cautious — we share the same values, and we balance out each other’s excesses.

We still see in each other what we saw then. Unlike the sniping, resentful couple in Plaza Suite, our return to our wedding night suite re-confirms that our unlikely match somehow works. It’s romantic. We have a connection. And it’s companionable.

So, 27 years late, we finally get our wedding night.

We say goodbye to St Ermin’s late the next morning, and go on to meet some close friends for a swim. As we walk towards them, grinning sheepishly and holding hands, one cries: ‘Oh my God, you look like a honeymoon couple!’ Just for now, that’s how it feels. And I think, at last, we deserve it.

Phil Robinson says:

My wedding day was a happy day. Well, I could see other people were happy and having a good time. I, on the other hand, was in shock. Part of that was a hang-over; the quiet night I’d promised Anna had turned into a heavy drinking session with my uncles.

I wrote my groom’s speech, sick as a dog, skin like wax paper. This was not what peak wedding-day performance looked like, even in the 1990s.

Suddenly, I was forced to confront things I’d simply blocked out. I was obsessed that the timing was wrong; at 24, I felt rushed. I wanted everything Anna did — to get married and have kids — just not now.

It was ridiculous, since I had pursued her and asked her to marry me. Now I felt like a complete fraud.

I spent the day staring at my shoes. Or at least that’s what it felt like. I don’t think I had any wedding cake. I felt incapable of meeting her expectations, for the wedding night, for ever.

When we got back to our room, I just wanted to go to sleep and wake up with all this behind me.

After that awkward day, my mental health continued to decline. I threw myself into work. Less than a year later, I had a nervous breakdown. Anna held our lives together while I flailed around.

It was probably — almost certainly — nothing to do with her at all.

Thankfully, she saw something in me worth saving. Without her, I’d have spiralled further.

I am still amazed that we found the confidence or stubbornness to have children. No one else thought this was a good idea. We had three kids under five, and were trying to pay a mortgage. This period of my life reminds me of when they used to wrap fever patients up in blankets — kill or cure. But it remains the best thing we ever did.

I began to realise that the antidepressants were numbing me — it felt as though I was watching my life unfold through a piece of two-way glass.

I decided to wean myself off them. I told my plan to my doctor, who warned me that if it went wrong he wouldn’t hesitate to have me sectioned. My desire to prove him wrong got me through a horrific year coming off one set of pills after another.

Gradually, the low, dark clouds that had loomed over me were replaced by a bright blue sky, because I could see the kids were fine. And Anna was still there.

Suddenly, at nearly 30, I had the married life I’d wanted. I’ll never forget that Anna was the first person to think I was worth the effort, all those years ago.

Returning to this hotel was not on my bucket list. I see the staircase where we had our wedding pictures. I remember the claustrophobic lift to the room. The labyrinthine corridors. And then the door. Back then I felt trapped. Today, I feel lucky.

Before we leave, Anna and I head down to the ballroom where we had our wedding reception. As we open the double doors and walk in, I feel the nerves coming back. I can place where the top table was and remember sitting there on my own, unable to speak.

But then something unexpected happens. I start remembering the happy faces of the people in the room. And some who are no longer with us. I miss them. And wish I could do it again and better appreciate it.

We take a picture of ourselves hugging and laughing. I give Anna a big kiss and, finally, we put that ghost to rest.