Secret behind Victoria and David Beckham's favourite photo - and why it's the key to their 'super special' 25th wedding anniversary plan tomorrow, reveals KATIE HIND

Hugging her new boyfriend aboard a yacht just off Portofino, the jewel of the Italian Riviera, 23-year-old Victoria Adams’s huge smile says it all: this is ‘The One’.

And David Beckham, still a rising star at Manchester United, seems to feel very much the same, gazing adoringly at the young woman who would become his wife — for 25 years and counting.

Sources close to Victoria say this intimate picture was taken on the couple’s first romantic trip away in 1997 – and that it remains one of the Beckhams’ favourite shots.

Coming just a few months after David and Victoria first got together, this snatched Italian break lasted no more than 48 hours.

The intimate picture of Victoria and David - shared on Instagram by the former Spice Girl - was taken on the couple’s first romantic trip away in 1997 to the swanky Italian resort of Portofino

Victoria shared another image from the trip and named her debut fragrance after the resort

But so firmly is the moment etched in their memories that they have chosen to return to the Mediterranean to mark their silver wedding anniversary tomorrow.

Indeed, the Mail can reveal that, following a small family gathering in the morning, David and Victoria will jet out to their multi-million-pound yacht to begin what friends describe as a ‘super special’ holiday lasting several weeks to celebrate what has evolved into a remarkable partnership.

Once mocked as gauche and arriviste, the Beckhams have not only faced down their critics but, as the years passed, have established themselves at the heart of national life: the legendary footballer now on friendly terms with King Charles himself – an ambassador for his charities – and the respected fashion designer. Together, they are said to be worth some £455 million.

A friend of the couple told the Mail: ‘That short break to Portofino cannot be underestimated, it is such a special memory for David and Victoria.

A friend of the couple told the Mail: 'It feels like they have come full circle from [the Portofino trip]... they were really only just starting out.' Pictured on a walk in the countryside in 2020

‘It was just the two of them and they enjoyed every second of it. It was a key moment for them. While they very much insist they fell in love at first sight, Portofino, was a place where their relationship really took off.

‘They were so young and so excited about their love for one another. Really, they knew by that point that they wanted to get married.

‘So, when it came to deciding what they were going to do for their big anniversary, they decided that it would be something very similar to that.

‘It feels like they have come full circle from back then. Although they were very famous by 1997 standards, they were really only just starting out.’

Of the two, in fact, Spice Girl Victoria – still known affectionately as ‘Posh Spice’ - was very much the more famous.

Flying out to the Mediterranean tomorrow, they will be reunited with their own yacht which has been sailed over from Miami where it is usually docked.

Indeed, such is the significance of Portofino in their relationship that Victoria, 50, named her debut fragrance after the resort.

Holding her son Brooklyn, Victoria gives David a kiss after he helped his side win the Premier League title at Old Trafford, Manchester, in May 2000

The couple in their first major television interview in 2001, where they joined Michael Parkinson for his BBC One talk show

Just days ago she wrote on Instagram that: ‘Portofino in 1997 was a very, very romantic trip. I remember how excited I was to be there with David for the first time.

‘The intensity of the two of us being together that 48 hours really was amazing.’

This time, however, there will be a few differences.

For a start, their yacht, unlike the one back then, belongs to them. Friends say the Beckhams are proud to own the £18 million vessel and see it very much as a sign of how far they have come in the world.

Named ‘Seven’ – their daughter Harper’s middle name and in tribute to David’s No 7 shirt at Manchester United – their own craft is a massive silver-coloured Riva 130 Bellissima measuring around 130ft (40 metres) long.

Accommodating up to ten guests in five suites, it was built at a boatyard in La Spezia, just down the coast from Portofino. The Beckhams had previously owned a smaller Riva Argo 90, which cost £5 million.

One friend said: ‘It is something they bought for pure enjoyment, they have worked exceptionally hard for their money and it is where they spend some happy times now.

‘So why not have their anniversary on board?’

Of course, it won’t be just the two of them; they are expected to be joined by their four children.

David Beckham and Posh Spice with their son Brooklyn days before their wedding in 1999

The couple will be joined for their silver wedding celeration by their four children. Pictured left to right: Cruz, Harper, David and Victoria, Romeo, Brooklyn and Brooklyn's wife, Nicola Peltz

Friends say they like to celebrate special times with the whole clan.

Daughter Harper, 12, who has just finished school for the summer, will join her parents on the plane to the Mediterranean tomorrow.

Older brothers Romeo, 21, and Cruz, 19, are also in the UK and are thought to be joining their parents for the break.

Meanwhile, 25-year-old Brooklyn Beckham and his wife Nicola Peltz are likely to fly in from Los Angeles at some point during the trip.

There will be no big party to mark the silver wedding, a contrast with the celebrations for Victoria’s 50th birthday earlier this year, when she threw a lavish bash at the exclusive Mayfair members’ club Oswald’s.

Instead, tomorrow will begin with that small family gathering at their £25 million home in Holland Park, West London.

There, they will have an exchange of presents and cards.

‘The children always go all out to make an effort for times like these,’ says a source close to the family. ‘David and Victoria’s hearts melt when they see the efforts the kids have gone to for them.’

Though the longevity of their partnership stands out in a world of brief celebrity marriages, some early critics doubted the Beckhams would ever reach such a milestone anniversary.

Along the way, they survived both the scandal of David’s dalliance with his former assistant, Rebecca Loos, and national vilification when, playing for England, he was sent off against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup. (Beckham’s petulant kick at an opponent was widely held to have cost England the match.)

Their romance began in the players’ lounge at Manchester United’s Old Trafford stadium in March 1997. Victoria was there with fellow Spice Girl Melanie Chisholm.

Once mocked as gauche and arriviste, the Beckhams have not only faced down their critics but, as the years passed, have established themselves at the heart of national life 

‘She came to a football match and I said “Hi” from across the room and that was it,’ recalls David of their first meeting. ‘I thought I’d missed my chance, and then a week later she turned up at another football match.’

After chatting for an hour or so, Victoria wrote her phone number on the train ticket she’d bought to travel to the match – a ticket that David has kept to this day.

Soon crowned ‘Posh and Becks’, the couple became engaged in January 1998. Four months later they learned that Victoria was pregnant with their first child.

One year on, with baby Brooklyn just six months old, the Beckhams tied the knot in one of the glitziest showbusiness weddings of the day after the publisher of OK! magazine, Richard Desmond, offered them £1 million for the exclusive rights to cover the ceremony and the celebrations that followed at Luttrellstown Castle, a 14-bedroom fairytale castle just outside Dublin.

Gary Neville, David’s friend and teammate, was the best man. Victoria had three bridesmaids: her sister Louise, Louise’s then 13-month-old daughter Liberty and David’s niece, 16-month-old Georgina. Brooklyn was the ring bearer.

Guests at the wedding included some of Victoria’s fellow Spice Girls, Elton John, George Michael and the Manchester United team.

On their wedding day in 1999, where Victoria wore a Vera Wang gown with a sweeping, 20ft train which took 15 months to make

The bride wore a strapless Vera Wang gown with a sweeping 20ft train.

The painstaking 15-month process of making it had included two initial consultations and six fittings in New York and London.

Victoria accessorised the dress with a £30,000, 18-carat gold and diamond crown-shaped tiara.

Conducted by the Bishop of Cork, the ceremony took place in a chapel at the castle. Victoria and David later changed into co-ordinated purple outfits for the reception, where they drank champagne and dined on red pepper and tomato soup, chicken with garlic and sage, asparagus spears and a summer vegetable medley.

‘Nobody had ever seen [David] happier,’ one of the guests tells me. ‘He kept telling everyone what a lucky, lucky man he was and that he and Victoria were going to be together for ever.’

Something they seem to have known on that very first holiday on the Italian Riviera so many years ago.