Raul Meireles’ wife is named Ivone Viana, who was born in the Portuguese parish of Martim; they have a 6-year-old little girl named Lara, who is one very active child. There was once a time SIC’s reporter Daniel Oliveira did an interview with Raul Meireles and Lara asked Daniel Oliveira if it was okay for her to interview her dad. Daniel Oliveira said it was okay and she ended up interviewing her dad. Too cute!
Raul Meireles was team-mates with Ivone’s cousin at youth level during their youth career at Boavista. Ivone was watching her cousin play from the stands. After the match, her cousin introduced Raul Meireles to Ivone and Raul Meireles right away fell in love her and found her beautiful; it was love at first sight for him, but not for her. The funny thing about their first encounter was that she was at first uninterested in Raul Meireles; she told him that he was not her type because she considered him not good-looking and too skinny.
As time progressed, he was at her cousin’s birthday party and spotted that she was also there. He took a glance at her and gave her a wink. Uninterested, she rolled her eyes and turned her head the other way. He then walked up to her and gave her one unaccepted big kiss! She enjoyed the one unaccepted big kiss, of course, and decided to give him a chance.
From that night forward, they got to know each other really well and both saw that they were met for each other and got married in 2008 and had also had their then 3-year-old daughter Lara baptised on the same day of their wedding, which both events were held in the Portuguese city of Barcelos and the wedding ceremony held in Ivone’s hometown of Martim.
Raul Meireles drove in his mini cooper after driving himself to his wedding where he wore painted tennis shoes to his wedding so to much that of his the vest and the dark coloured jacket he wore, whilst Ivone Viana wore the typical wedding dress, without wearing an adornment, revealing the many tattoos she has on both her arms. Her wedding was designed by Portuguese fashion designer Fátima Lopes.
Padre Aurélio Ribeiro exhnaged the wedding vows and had also baptised Lara, whilst Raul Meireles’ then Porto team-mates, Bruno Alves, Bosingwa, Hélder Postiga, Hugo Almeida, Lisandro Lopes, Lucho Gonzalez, Nuno Espírito Santo, and Pepe, were all invited and had all assisted him at the wedding, and whilst Vítor Baía arrived at the wedding ceremony.
Not only is Raul Meireles a tattoo person, but so is Ivone; they always go together to their local tattoo parlor to get their tattoos done on the same day. He has a tattoo of her name printed on his right wrist and a tattoo of her face on his bottom left forearm and of their daughter on the top of his left forearm.
Raul Meireles has a fashion sense and sometimes goes out shopping with his His Portugal and ex-Porto team-mates where he chooses which clothes he thinks would suit them best. Whenever he goes out and about with his current and ex-team-mates, he chooses what clothes he thinks would suit them best and will sometimes go and tell them to immediately change if he sees that they are wearing something that he thinks does not suit them.
Not only does Raul Meireles have a fashion sense, but so does Ivone; they both have a separate line of clothes in their bedroom. One half is his and the other is hers. Their bedroom has many closets full of clothes, so full of clothes that they did not have enough room for their bed, so, they installed one of those beds where they press a button and it comes down from the ceiling. I do not know the name of those beds. Pardon my ignorance!
On Wednesday, 18 February, 2009, both Raul Meireles and Ivone lunched a boutique fashion retail clothing store, which also includes footwear and all other fashion related accessories, in the Portuguese city of Ermesinde. Raul Meirele’s sister is the manager of the store and is close friends, but are more like sisters, with Ivone.
Not only do Raul Meireles and Ivone share a fashion sense together, but also share an art graphic sense together; they have many art graphics plastered on their walls almost entirely all over their house, one of them being their 6-year-old little girl Lara.