A 20-year love story that began rather unexpectedly
Johanna Griggs has spent more than two decades appearing in front of Australian television audiences.
But one of the most revealing stories about her life has nothing to do with Better Homes and Gardens, the Olympic Games or the swimming career that first made her famous.
It began at home.
With a dinner party.
And then another.
And another.
In a candid conversation this year, Johanna revealed that when she first met her future husband Todd Huggins, she spent six months hosting Friday-night dinner parties, deliberately creating opportunities for him to spend time with her.
The story is wonderfully ordinary — and perhaps that is what makes it so revealing about the relationship they would eventually build.
Johanna had to work a little harder than Todd
Johanna and Todd first met in 2005, after being introduced by Johanna’s brother Michael.
According to Johanna, however, it took considerably longer for Todd to realise where the relationship might be heading.
So she began what she later described as her determined campaign.
“I threw a dinner party every night for six months, every Friday night, just hoping that he would notice me,” she recalled on Three Food Memories.
It was not quite the sweeping romantic gesture one might imagine from a television personality’s love story.
In fact, Johanna laughed when describing how it unfolded.
She would put on dinner.
Todd would come along.
Everyone would have a lovely evening.
And then, apparently, Todd would leave without quite understanding what Johanna was trying to achieve.
“That was great fun. See you next time”
In a previous interview, Johanna remembered just how determined she had been to get Todd to notice her.
She said she felt she was “throwing myself at him so badly” while repeatedly hosting dinners.
But Todd remained oblivious enough to simply enjoy the evenings.
At the end of one dinner, she recalled him effectively saying that it had been great fun and that he would see her next time.
For Johanna, that meant one thing.
Another dinner party.
She later joked about having to keep going despite having no idea whether her plan would ever work.
It eventually did.
The relationship became serious — and quickly became part of family life
The dinners were only the beginning.
Johanna had already been a mother to two boys, Jesse and Joe, from her previous marriage to actor Gary Sweet.
Todd’s behaviour around the children became one of the clearest signs to Johanna that this relationship was different.
She recalled that while she was overseas hosting sporting events, Todd would regularly visit her sons.
He would kick a football with them, help them with homework or simply sit down and watch television with them.
For Johanna, that was monumental.
“He never tried to be the boys’ dad because they have a dad,” she explained.
But he became someone the boys trusted and looked up to.
That role eventually became one of the things Johanna valued most about him.
Twenty years later, that early connection still matters
Johanna and Todd married in 2006 in a private ceremony at their home in Collaroy Plateau.
The marriage has now lasted around two decades, spanning some of the biggest changes in Johanna’s personal and professional life.
Todd has remained largely outside the celebrity spotlight.
He works as a building foreman, and unlike his wife, he has never built a public career around being recognised.
Johanna has previously said one of the qualities she admires most is how secure he is in himself.
She once joked that few men would be comfortable with a wife who spends so much of her life travelling, but said Todd has never been insecure about it.
That independence appears to have been one of the quiet strengths of their relationship.
Johanna has called him “exceptional”
Over the years, Johanna has been remarkably open about how much she values Todd.
In a 2018 interview, she called him “pretty exceptional” and said her biggest regret was that she had not met him earlier.
She also praised the fact that he was comfortable with her demanding career and the amount of travel it involved.
That is not an insignificant detail.
Johanna’s career has taken her around the world.
She has hosted major sporting events, worked on Olympic coverage and spent more than 20 years as one of the faces of Better Homes and Gardens.
For a relationship to work alongside that level of travel, trust and independence have to be more than words.
Johanna has repeatedly suggested that Todd gives her exactly that.
Their family also went through a deeply personal chapter
There was another part of their marriage that Johanna has discussed openly over the years.
After marrying Todd, the couple tried to have a child together through IVF.
They underwent several rounds before doctors told them that the treatment was highly unlikely to succeed. They later looked into adoption, but a paperwork issue meant they missed a deadline by just 12 hours and were told they would have to start again.
Eventually, the couple decided to stop pursuing it.
Johanna remembered asking Todd what he thought.
His response, according to her, was that perhaps it was the universe telling them to stop.
It was a difficult conclusion, but it also led them to appreciate the family they already had.
Todd never needed to replace their father
That was especially important because Jesse and Joe were not little children for long.
Johanna has always been careful when talking about Todd’s role in their lives.
She has never presented him as a replacement for their biological father.
Instead, she described him as an additional person who loved them, guided them and became someone they could turn to.
The boys, she said, adored him.
And Todd’s approach — being there without trying to take someone else’s place — appears to have been one of the things that made the relationship work so naturally.
Then came a new kind of love
In 2018, the family’s dynamic changed again when Joe welcomed his son Jax, making Johanna a grandmother and Todd a grandfather.
Johanna described her grandson as a source of extraordinary joy.
But she also noticed something unexpected in Todd.
She said the love he felt for Jax was different from the love he had for her — not less, simply different.
“There are things he’d do for Jax that he wouldn’t do for me,” she joked during the 2026 podcast.
For a couple who had once faced disappointment over not having a child together, becoming grandparents brought an entirely new experience.
Johanna has described that period as one of the gifts of their life.
Their home has become part of their story
The couple have also built a life that extends beyond television studios.
They own a property known affectionately within the family as Huggins Hill, named after Todd.
In the 2026 podcast, Johanna joked that Todd once built her a dedicated “Mrs Huggins Hobby Hut” because she was constantly taking up new interests, from beekeeping and growing vegetables to knitting, crocheting and whittling
The story is typical of the way Johanna describes their relationship.
There is teasing.
There is laughter.
And there is a sense that Todd is comfortable letting Johanna fill their home with whatever new obsession has caught her attention that week.
Even their disagreements can sound wonderfully ordinary
One of the lighter glimpses into their marriage came in 2023, when Johanna revealed that Todd had asked her to prepare one of his favourite State of Origin dinners.
His request?
Boiled frankfurters in white bread rolls with butter, cheese and tomato sauce.
Johanna was horrified.
She shared a photo of the meal online with a joking warning to her followers and made clear she was definitely not eating the same dinner.
It sounds trivial.
But after nearly two decades together, those silly domestic moments are perhaps more revealing than any grand declaration.
They know each other’s habits.
They know each other’s strange food preferences.
And they can laugh about them.
Todd has also been there when life became more serious
Their marriage has not been made up entirely of light-hearted stories.
In late 2022, Todd was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma, and complications followed after surgery.
Johanna later described the situation as a serious period for the family and spoke about how they worked together to help him recover.
The experience also prompted Johanna to speak more strongly about sun protection, something particularly meaningful given her background as a swimmer and her years working outdoors.
Todd eventually recovered and Johanna said he was “firing on all cylinders”.
Again, the story was not about a dramatic rescue.
It was about a husband and wife dealing with something difficult together.
Johanna’s career has never really slowed down
While all of this was happening at home, Johanna’s television career continued.
She joined Better Homes and Gardens in 2005, and more than two decades later she remains one of the show’s familiar hosts. In February 2026, she described the programme as her “dream job” and joked that Todd sometimes tells her she is not really working because she is simply having the time of her life.
That may be one of the simplest descriptions of their marriage.
Johanna’s life is busy.
Todd does not appear to mind.
He has his own work, his own interests and his own place in the family.
And when she comes home from another television assignment, there is someone who has known her long before the latest television role.
The dinner parties were only the beginning
Looking back, the funniest part of Johanna’s story may be how hard she had to work to get the romance started.
She was not waiting passively for Todd to make the first move.
She cooked.
She invited him over.
She kept doing it.
Week after week.
For six months.
And while Todd apparently saw a series of enjoyable dinners, Johanna was quietly hoping one of them would become something more.
Eventually, it did.
The couple married the following year.
What lasted was not the courtship trick — it was everything afterwards
It would be easy to turn the six-month dinner story into a cute romantic anecdote.
But there is more to the relationship than that.
Todd became an important figure in the lives of Johanna’s sons.
He supported a wife whose career required enormous travel.
They built a home and a business life together.
They navigated the disappointment of unsuccessful IVF.
They became grandparents.
They faced health scares.
And they have continued finding reasons to laugh at the little things.
The dinners may have started the relationship.
They were not what made the marriage last.
Johanna still speaks about Todd with the same affection
Two decades after their wedding, Johanna continues to describe Todd with remarkable warmth.
In the 2026 podcast, she called him an “extraordinary human being” and spoke about how much she values the way he has embraced her children and their extended family.
In another interview, she said she felt incredibly lucky to have met him — while still wishing their paths had crossed earlier.
That consistency is perhaps more meaningful than any romantic quote.
The admiration has lasted.
So has the friendship.
Twenty years later, the secret feels surprisingly simple
Johanna’s “secret” was never really the dinner parties.
They were simply how she created a chance for two people to spend time together.
The bigger story is what happened after Todd finally noticed her.
A man who became part of her boys’ lives without trying to replace their father.
A husband comfortable with a woman whose career keeps her in the spotlight.
A partner who has shared the difficult chapters as well as the funny ones.
And a person Johanna still seems genuinely delighted to come home to.
Perhaps that is why her story is so charming.
It began with a woman quietly trying to get a man’s attention.
It lasted because, over the next 20 years, they built something much deeper than a successful first date.
Six months of dinner parties opened the door.
Everything they shared afterwards kept it open.