Restaurants are heavily booked, business booms for florists, chocolatiers and jewellers, and it’s one of the most popular dates for wedding proposals.

And while many might argue the day is a cheesy, over-commercialised celebration of love, there’s no denying that love – in its many forms – is essential to human existence and adds purpose and meaning to our lives. It is proven to contribute significantly to good physical and mental wellbeing and boost social connectedness, while also promoting empathy and personal growth.

So in honour of the month of love, we chat to four Tassie couples – who not only live together, but also manage to successfully work together in the same industry – about the highs and lows of their closely intertwined lives.

From overseas adventures and spending time apart to the joy of marriage and the grief of infant loss, these couples reveal some of the challenges and triumphs of their partnerships, and discuss how they maintain work/life balance, while also sharing their secrets to maintaining a happy, healthy relationship.

JANE LONGHURST & GUY HOOPER

They have both enjoyed long and successful acting careers, performing on stage and screen in Australia and overseas.

But many may be surprised to learn Jane Longhurst, 58, and Guy Hooper, 62, actually bonded over a shared love of sport.

The pair met in 1995 while working together on a Zootango Theatre Company production at Salamanca’s Peacock Theatre. Jane, who grew up at Dynnyrne and went to Taroona High School, left the state at 21 to pursue acting in Melbourne, but returned briefly to work on the show alongside Guy.

Guy was born in Singapore and grew up in Sydney but had been living and working in Melbourne before coming to Tasmania, for the Zootango role.

“We bonded over sport,’’ Guy recalls.

“I was impressed by Jane’s knowledge, not only of the Australian cricket team but also the Australian rugby team.’’

He remembers a “bunch of blokes from the cast” watching the Rugby World Cup together. They were “shouting passionately at the TV” and Jane was right there alongside them.

“I just remember thinking ‘wow, here’s this fantastic lady who is not only funny and a good actor but she really understands and knows a lot about sport as well,’’ Guy says. Even before that, Jane knew there was a special connection between them.

“I can confidently say that I didn’t fall in love at first sight but I did by lunchtime on the first day of rehearsals; I knew we’d have a long and happy life together,’’ she says.

Guy says falling for Jane was “undoubtedly the best thing I did in my life’’.

He studied at theatre school in London before the couple got married in Denmark, in 1999. They then spent two years living in Japan teaching English, where Jane also provided voices for computer game characters and worked as a presenter on a multilingual radio station.

The professional actors have performed in circuses, on stage with various theatre companies, and in popular TV shows such as Neighbours, The Flying Doctors and A Country Practice. They moved to Tasmania in 2007 with their two young sons, Griffin and Alasdair, buying a home in Sandy Bay, where they still live today.

The boys are now 22 and 19, and Jane and Guy continue to work together in an industry they love.

“Jane and I do sometimes work together on the same productions,’’ Guy says.

“But most of the time we’re working in the same industry but separately.’’

However, Jane reveals, they’re “about to have a bit of shift in dynamic’’ as she steps into a directing role for the first time, and Guy will be part of the cast.

While they can’t reveal too much about that production until it is officially launched later this week, they can say it will be performed inside The Old Mercury Building’s print hall at the end of March.

And Guy can’t say enough kind words about his wife/director.

“I always look forward to working with Jane,’’ he says earnestly.

“She works extremely hard, she’s always thoroughly prepared, she cares about the quality of the craft and she creates a warmth in the rehearsal room.’’

Though he admits he does need the occasional reminder when they’re working together to not call Jane “Sweetheart” in the workplace.

Having two performers in a relationship together means they both deeply understand the job and all it entails, in a way an outsider would not.

And Jane is equally complimentary of her husband.

“I love working with Guy,’’ she says. I really love his brain and his perception.’’

Guy adds: “Whether we’re in the same show or not we always give each other very honest feedback. The critique you get from the audience on opening night doesn’t matter nearly as much as what your partner says to you after your last cup of tea (or sometimes single malt whisky) at night. Because we’ve known each other for 30 years, we know each other’s tricks as actors, we know when we’re not living up to the mark, we can see it in each other and we respect each other. And I think that applies on a broader level across any relationship – being honest with each other as much as you can. You need to be honest with yourself and the other person in a relationship.”

JI WON KIM & CALEB WRIGHT

Violinist Ji Won Kim and violist Caleb Wright recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary and have two young children, but Ji Won says lightheartedly that she never intended to marry a fellow musician.

“My plan was to not marry a musician,’’ she laughs.

“I thought, as a musician, I’m sensitive and could be a little bit volatile, and if I married someone else like that, it could be challenging. Marriage is hard work – I didn’t want it to be extra hard.’’

But that mindset changed when she met Caleb in 2012, when they were both working for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

“We are different people, definitely, with different temperaments,’’ Caleb, 41, explains of why their relationship works.

“Although we play similar instruments, violists are always more chilled, violinists tend to be more highly strung – no pun intended.’’

Now both performers with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Ji Won – the orchestra’s associate concertmaster – and Caleb – who holds the position of principal viola – moved to Tasmania two years ago after a stint working overseas.

They were living in Kuala Lumpur, playing for the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, when they were approached to apply for roles with the TSO and were fortunate to both secure positions.

They were packed and ready to relocate to Tasmania when Covid hit and borders closed, delaying their move for many months.

Ji Won, who celebrates her 40th birthday today, on February 1, grew up in South Korea and moved to Australia as a teenager, while Caleb grew up in Adelaide.

They had been enjoying life in Malaysia and had no real plans to move until the TSO job offers presented themselves. But they’re now settled in Sandy Bay with sons Teo, 6, and Ioan, 4, and say things have turned out perfectly.

“We weren’t looking at moving,’’ Caleb admits.

“But having moved here, it’s heaven. We didn’t realise until we got here.’’

They are not the only couple within the TSO – couples within orchestras are relatively common across the globe. Ji Won says working together means they see each other more than many other couples would and are able to help each other musically.

“Working in the same job, it is a plus for us, I think,’’ she says.

Meanwhile, Caleb jokes that his wife is “very good at doing the right thing and keeping me in check’’ at work.

They rehearse and perform together regularly, and will perform as co-soloists in a concert – Echoes of Joy and Sorrow – with chief conductor Eivind Aadland at Federation Concert Hall in August.

When they’re not performing with the TSO, Ji Won and Caleb enjoy making chamber music at home and also have a number of other shared hobbies inspired by Tassie’s fresh produce, including home brewing a wine/cider product and making biltong (dried meat).

Although it was their shared love of music that brought them together, Caleb believes the secret to their successful relationship actually has nothing to do with music.

He says it’s more about carving out time to spend together and working hard to ensure the relationship is a success, especially once kids are added to the mix.

“For me, I think it’s about having that focus on wanting the relationship to work,’’ he explains.

“Enjoying each other’s company, it’s not necessarily a given, you have to work for it.’’

BIANCA & JAMES WELSH

Bianca and James Welsh were work friends, employed at the same hotel restaurant in Launceston, before their relationship turned romantic.

“I don’t think we went into it thinking ‘this is it’, but it became apparent very quickly that we were just really happy with each other,’’ Bianca recalls.

“We barely spent a night apart from the moment we met. We were both at home, still living with our parents – I was 18, James was 21. We got a rental less than 12 months after we met.’’

It wasn’t long before they got a dog, shared a car, purchased a house and bought into two businesses – they also got married and started a family.

Bianca, now 37, and James, who turns 41 later this month, have now been together for almost 20 years and still successfully live and work together – as co-owners and operators of Launceston’s award-winning Stillwater restaurant and boutique hotel.

Having spent a long time working in the industry, they had seen other couples over the years who didn’t work well together.

“We’d seen couples yelling and screaming and throwing stuff … it used to get pretty heated sometimes in the middle of service,’’ she says.

Bianca says it was when they first became co-owners of Stillwater that they really had to establish boundaries around work and life, and set out clearly defined roles and responsibilities to ensure everything ran smoothly.

“In a lot of hospo couples, one works front of house and one works back of house,’’ she says.

“But because we’re both front of house (Bianca is operations manager, while James is a sommelier and manages accounts) we’re in each other’s domain a lot. It took us a while to figure it out but we realised one of us had to take the lead and be in charge.

“We work quite harmoniously now in service together. I think the important thing was that at the end of the day we always understood the end goal and for us and, in the restaurant, that’s for our customers to have a great time, to serve good food and booze … we’ve always had very similar values and I think that has seen our relationship go from strength to strength.’’

At one stage they were running both Stillwater and Launceston’s Black Cow Bistro, and Bianca jokes that having two restaurants was perfect for maintaining marital harmony, as she worked in one restaurant and James worked in the other.

They sold Black Cow two-and-a-half years ago in a bid to claw back more family time after having their son Claude, now 8.

And while they now successfully juggle business and family life, working at Stillwater and managing 50 staff, their relationship has not been without ups and downs.

James has spoken publicly in the past about his mental health struggles. And Bianca actually returned to university to study psychology, now working as a consultant to better support the mental health of others within the hospitality sector, although she takes off her psychologist hat when at home.

“I quickly realised I can’t be his wife and business partner and friend as well as his therapist,’’ Bianca says of James.

“But (the psychology degree) did help give me a lot better understanding and empathy’’.

The biggest test of their relationship came in 2022 when they endured the heartache of losing their son Herbert, at 37 weeks gestation, after he was diagnosed with a rare medical condition in utero.

Bianca says it was an “incredibly stressful” time in the lead up to Herbert’s birth, and they were “beyond heartbroken” to say goodbye to their son, who would have recently turned three.

But she believes their experience working together and managing others in a fast-paced and often stressful restaurant environment helped them work through their grief and loss together.

“I think we were really well poised to get each other through another really stressful situation,’’ she says.

“I think what strengthened our relationship was that we were able to communicate with each other. To have that level of respect – and obviously love and care – and have empathy for each other, has got us through a lot of really hard times.’’

She believes the key to a strong relationship is accepting life is going to be full of ups and downs, and being prepared to communicate and work through all of these highs and lows together.

They have since welcomed daughter Rani to their family, who is now 18 months old.

Bianca says a pregnancy after losing Herbert was “extremely stressful” but their loss has also given them a new appreciation for parenthood.

“We’re back in the trenches again with a toddler and we’d both kind of forgotten what that was like,’’ she says.

“It’s a lot (to juggle young kids and run a business) … we’re very busy. But it’s a really special time to have the opportunity to have another child.’’

SALLIANN & KRISTEN BEAMS

Salliann Beams got far more than she bargained for when she came to Australia for a holiday from her native England in 2018.

Because it was through that trip that she connected with her future wife, Kristen Beams.

A few months later, Salliann moved across the world to Hobart, to work with Cricket Tasmania, as head coach of the Tigers and Hurricanes women’s teams. And while things continued to boom in her professional life – with the Tigers winning their first ever Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL) title in 2022, before Salliann was later promoted to her current role as Cricket Tasmania’s general manager of high performance – she was also enjoying success in her personal life.

After eight months of long-distance dating, Kristen – who had been living in Melbourne while playing cricket for Victoria – returned to her home state of Tasmania once the season ended.

The loved-up couple got a dog, purchased a home together, got engaged, got married in a small wedding at Snug Beach – when Kristen was five months pregnant – and then welcomed son Billy, who will turn 4 in May, into their family.

“Me and Kristen met when we were 36 so it was one those things, we knew exactly what we wanted – and children and marriage – and it must have looked to everyone kind of rushed, but everything clicked, it was what we wanted,’’ explains Salliann, who turns 41 on Monday, February 3.

Kristen, 40 – who made her international cricket debut at age 30, after more than a decade representing Victoria at state level – played 49 matches for Australia between 2014 and 2017, and captained the Melbourne Stars in the WBBL, before retiring from playing in 2019. Salliann says Kristen has since been “dipping her toes in all sorts things” requiring travel in and out of Tasmania. Kristen was assistant coach of Sydney Thunder women’s team for the 2024-25 season – she is also Cricket Australia’s national development lead for female cricket, and will soon return from Malaysia where she was head coach of the U19 Australian cricket team in the World Cup.

“It’s a juggle,” Salliann admits of having two people in the same household working in cricket-related roles.

“But there’s a lot of gratitude there as well. It’s a busy life we both lead but it really works for us, we’re so lucky in that sense that we’ve been through it together and we understand what the demands of the role are.’’

And while some couples might have rules about not discussing work at home, Salliann says that’s certainly not the case in their Tranmere household as they both “live and breathe cricket”.

“We acknowledge that cricket is part of our lives, it gives us our purpose and our passion so we never get bored of it,’’ she explains.

“We’ll have family over for dinner and they’ll say ‘do you speak about anything else?’ But that’s just how it is, we live and breathe it, it’s not a boring subject for us even though it is for some others.’’

Salliann is certainly thankful she decided to holiday in Australia, as it ultimately changed the course of her life. She still can’t believe her luck sometimes when she reflects on how much her life has been enriched in recent years.

“Where we’ve got to in six years and how happy life is and how fortunate we are to have a little boy as well … I’m incredibly fortunate that I moved out here for a new job,’’ Salliann says.

“I’ve got a great job, a child and a wife. I miss my family of course, I miss people, but I’m living in one of the most beautiful places in the world and everything seems so far – touch wood – to be going well.’’ •