Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day (Saint Valentine's Day) is an occasion celebrated on February 14. It is the traditional day on which people express their love for each other by sending Valentine's cards, presenting flowers, or offering confectionery.

Who is St. Valentine?

The Valentine that most experts believe is the actual one remembered on St. Valentine's Day was a Roman who was martyred for refusing to give up Christianity.

What happens on Valentines day in Britain?

Each year in Britain, we spend around £503m on cards, flowers, chocolates and other gifts for Valentine's Day. Traditionally these were sent anonymously, but nowadays we often make it clear who is sending each 'Valentine'.

Valentine's Day Superstitions & Traditions

Traditionally, spring begins on St Valentine's Day (February 14th), the day on which birds chose their mates. In parts of Sussex Valentines Day was called 'the Birds' Wedding Day'.

There are many other traditions and superstitions associated with romance activities on Valentine's day including:

• the first man an unmarried woman saw on 14th February would be her future husband;
• if the names of all a girl's suitors were written on paper and wrapped in clay and the clay put into water, the piece that rose to the surface first would contain the name of her husband-to-be.
• if a woman saw a robin flying overhead on Valentine’s Day, it meant she would marry a sailor. If she saw a sparrow, she would marry a poor man and be very happy. If she saw a goldfinch, she would marry a rich person.
• In the Middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week.
• In Wales wooden love spoons were carved and given as gifts on February 14th. Hearts, keys and keyholes were favourite decorations on the spoons. The decoration meant, "You unlock my heart!"

Quotations for St Valentine's Day

• When love is not madness, it is not love. ~Pedro Calderon de la Barca

• Many are the starrs I see, but in my eye no starr like thee. ~English saying used on poesy rings

• Loving is not just looking at each other, it's looking in the same direction. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand, and Stars, 1939

• Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love. ~Albert Einstein

• I don't understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine's Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon. ~Author Unknown

• For you see, each day I love you more

Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.
~Rosemonde Gerard

• I claim there ain't another Saint as great as Valentine. ~Ogden Nash
  

• Trip over love, you can get up. Fall in love and you fall forever. ~Author Unknown

• Anyone can catch your eye, but it takes someone special to catch your heart. ~Author Unknown

• A hundred hearts would be too few to carry all my love for you.~Author Unknown
  

• We are all a little weird and life's a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love. ~Author Unknown

Must, bid the Morn awake!
Sad Winter now declines,
Each bird doth choose a mate;
This day's Saint Valentine's.
For that good bishop's sake
Get up and let us see
What beauty it shall be
That Fortune us assigns.
~Michael Drayton

• Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs. ~William Shakespeare

• If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular? ~Author Unknown

• Who, being loved, is poor? ~Oscar Wilde

• Grow old with me! The best is yet to be. ~Robert Browning

• Without love, what are we worth? Eighty-nine cents! Eighty-nine cents worth of chemicals walking around lonely. ~M*A*S*H, Hawkeye

• We loved with a love that was more than love. ~Edgar Allan Poe

• Love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat. ~Ben Hecht

• Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity. ~Henry Van Dyke

• Are we not like two volumes of one book? ~Marceline Desbordes-Valmore

• I've fallen in love many times... always with you. ~Author Unknown

• What I need to live has been given to me by the earth. Why I need to live has been given to me by you. ~Author Unknown