Approximately one billion Valentine cards are exchanged each year.
Most Valentine`s Day cards (83%) are purchased by women.
Half of all consumers prefer to receive a humorous Valentine, followed by a romantic greeting (31%) and then a more risque form of card (8.2%).
Shakespeare takes the name of rose at least 50 times throughout his writings.
February 14 is the most important holiday for florists, accounting for about half of annual sales.
Most of the consumers who buy flowers to send on Valentine`s Day are male.
Males tend to spend more money on Valentine`s Day gifts than do females and are more likely to buy big-ticket items.
Alexander Graham Bell applied for his patent on the telephone on Valentine`s Day in 1876.
In the US, Miss Esther Howland is given the credit of sending the first ever V-Day card.
The chief colors associated with Valentine`s Day are pink, red and white.
Pink is a delicate, is connected with St Valentine, whose burial was said to have caused the pink almond tree to blossom. Red is a symbol of warmth and feeling...the color of the heart, while white represents purity and faith...a faith between the two who love each other.
In UK, a woman would write the names of their sweethearts on small scraps of paper which would be placed on clay balls. The balls were dropped into water with the belief that whichever scrap of paper surfaced first would be the name of the man destined to be the future husband.
An old English custom was for people to call out, "Good morning, `tis St. Valentine`s Day." The individual who succeeded in being the first to say this then expected to receive a present from the one to whom it was said.
One of the most ancient of Valentine`s Days rituals (dating from at least the Middle Ages and possibly earlier) was the practice of writing the names of young ladies on slips of paper and placing them within a jar or bowl. The lady whose name was drawn by an eligible bachelor became his valentine and he wore the name on his sleeve for one week. It is believed that the saying "to wear one`s heart on one`s sleeve" (meaning that is easy for others to know the romantic inclination of an individual) may have originated from this custom.
