17 Fun & Interesting Facts About Valentine’s Day

Experts with the National Retail Foundation (NRF) expect Americans to spend an estimated $25.9 billion on Valentine’s Day 2023. In 2022, $23.9 billion was spent on retail items for the holiday, which made it the second-highest year for spending since the NRF started keeping record of holiday spending in 2007.

Here’s a look at the percentage of consumers who plan to purchase these popular Valentine’s Day gifts in 2023:

Candy: 57%

Greeting Cards: 40%

Flowers: 37%

An evening out: 32%

Jewelry: 21%

The NRF projects that Americans will spend approximately $192.80 per household celebrating Valentine’s Day in 2023. That’s up from $175.41 in 2022 and $164.76 in 2021, but not quite as high as the $196.31 per household spent in 2020. When you think about all of the people (and pets!) to buy for — kids, spouses, parents, teachers, coworkers, etc. — it all adds up.

If you think Valentine’s Day isn’t a major holiday, think again. More than 52% of Americans plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day in 2023, according to the NRF.

Shocking, right? The Society of American Florists (SAF) estimates that more than 250 million roses are produced for Valentine’s Day each year. In fact, 83% of consumers who bought flowers for Valentine’s Day in 2022 purchased roses. Red roses are the most popular color sold, followed by pink roses, and then white roses.

The SAF also noted that Valentine’s Day is the number one holiday for florists and floral purchases, with 22% of American adults purchasing fresh flowers or plants as a Valentine’s Day gift in 2022.

Not including the type of packaged cards given by kids during classroom exchanges, approximately 145 million Valentine’s Day greeting cards are exchanged on the holiday, according to Hallmark. This makes the holiday the second-biggest holiday for the greeting card industry with Christmas topping the list.

A fun fact about Hallmark? The greeting card company first started selling Valentine’s Day cards back in 1913.

Exchanging heartfelt cards with your loved ones is a standard part of the holiday, but did you know that the first Valentine ever given was actually a poem? In 1415, a French duke named Charles wrote a poem for his wife and sent it to her while he was imprisoned inside the Tower of London, according to History.com.

Prior to the invention of mass-produced Valentine’s Day cards in 1849, handwritten cards were the norm. Esther A. Howland, known as the “Mother of the American Valentine,” is credited for designing and producing the first cards sold in stores, according to Forbes.

Valentine’s Day isn’t just about showing love to the humans in your life, but it’s an opportunity to shower your pets with gifts, too! An estimated $1.189 billion dollars was projected to be spent on pets for Valentine’s Day 2022, per the NRF.

CandyStore.com complied 14 years of sales data to conclude that heart-shaped boxes of chocolate are the most popular Valentine’s Day candy in the United States. So, it makes sense that 58% of Valentine’s Day candy purchased is chocolate, according to the National Confectioners Association (NCA).

The leading producer of conversation hearts is the Sweetheart brand by Spangler, who produces an estimated 8 billion of the candies each year. Originally called Sweet Hearts, conversation hearts as we know them today were invented in the 1860’s.

Some sayings on Sweethearts candies, including “Be Mine” and “Kiss Me” date back to the brand’s inception in 1902, according to Spangler. Each year since the early 1990s, new sayings have been added and others have retired as phrases fall in and out of use. For example, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a “Fax Me” candy heart these days, but “Text Me” is ever-present. In 2022, the brand introduced 16 new phrases including “Way 2 Go” and “Crush It.”

If the amount of candy, trinkets, and cards my own kids bring home each year from their classroom exchange is any indication, this stat about kids and Valentine’s Day from CandyStore.com absolutely holds up.

In 2020, Valentine’s Day surpassed Christmas Day as the most popular day for wedding proposals, according to Wedding Wire. The holiday is all about love, after all, so this makes total sense.

In 2019, singer Katy Perry and actor Orlando Bloom got engaged on Valentine’s Day during a helicopter ride. Other celebrities with V-Day proposals include Harrison Ford to Calista Flockhart and Vince Vaughn and Kyla Weber in 2009, as well as Matthew Rutler to Christina Aguilera in 2014.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter tied the knot on Valentine’s Day in 2015, while Salma Hayek’s nuptials to Franois-Henri Pinault took place on Feb. 14, 2009 at a private ceremony in France.

Celebrities born on Valentine’s Day include Danai Gurira (Black Panther), actor Freddie Highmore (The Good Doctor), Matchbox Twenty frontman Rob Thomas, and the late Florence Henderson (The Brady Bunch).

Though the Gary Marshall film’s star-studded ensemble cast is typically lauded as the most popular rom-com about the holiday, the 2010 film Valentine’s Day is not the only popular movie that takes place on Feb. 14. The 2004 film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet also takes place on the date.