Happy 30th Wedding Anniversary to Neill & Jo!

30 years ago today, Neill and Jo Menneer, the founders of Divine Divas & Spirit Photographic, got married.

We wanted to find out how they met and what they really love about each other.

Jo: 33 years ago my brother said some friends were visiting and asked whether I wanted to go out to the pub. My brother is five years older than me so it should have been a great supply of boyfriend material, but frankly, usually most of his friends were not my cup of tea. However, as my friend Helen and I had no other plans we agreed to go. We met the guys at my brother’s house and as Neill unfurled his 6’4” frame from an armchair, it was lust at first sight!

I was a 21-year-old nanny and he was a 31-year-old successful photographer, we were both in London but at opposite ends. I spent a month pestering my brother to find out if Neill had rung him for my number -this being before mobiles existed let alone the internet! It took him nearly a month to call me and ask me on a date. Our first date nearly didn’t happen as he had asked me for lunch and finding my way from Stanmore to Stoke Newington with just an A to Z and the occasional stop in a red phone box to call to say I’m lost was a nightmare. He asked me to try one more time and eventually I found my way to his house. He’d made spaghetti bolognese -classic date food in the 1980s!

After lunch we went to the Barbican to see a Cecil Beaton exhibition, followed by the cinema and onto a friend of his party. From then on pretty much all our weekends were together and as a nanny I had one evening off until 10.30pm! Neill would drive over to Stanmore to take me out.

9 months later we came to Bath for the weekend. We were madly in love and fell in love with Bath. We impulsively looked at some houses that weekend and bought one, the house we still live in today, 32 years later!

I still fancy the pants off Neill. He is intelligent, kind, good with words, incredibly creative and he makes me laugh every single day. Any of you who have had him as your photographer know he is driven to create beautiful artworks of his sitters. He is also a fantastic dad to our two children. I know I am lucky to still be in love with the same man after 33 years of being together and 30 years of marriage. This is not to say it is always plain sailing but at the heart of it we share the same values and sense of humour.

We love it ❤ We'd love to hear your love story too! We can't help but be romantics here at Divine Divas...