‘We once had a customer who lined up gifts for his wife... and three lovers’ – Valentine’s experts confess all
Are you making a last-minute dash to the garage to pick up a battered bunch of anaemic roses? Or perhaps you have spent weeks crafting an elaborate surprise comprising mix tapes, personalised poetry and even – whisper it – a proposal?
If you’re still deciding then seeking inspiration from a pollster is not – arguably – the most romantic route. But it might be helpful to know that, according to YouGov, the UK’s most popular gift is... a greetings card, chosen by 41 per cent of those celebrating. You can – should – do better.
The country’s second most popular choices are chocolates and sweets (20 per cent), followed – of course – by flowers (18 per cent). Men are eight times more likely than women to give the latter.
Whatever gift you choose to convey your undying love (not a voucher, please), an army of waiters, florists, chocolatiers and hotel housekeepers are working overtime in the run-up to February 14, tirelessly wrapping, chopping, labelling and sprinkling rose petals over your heartfelt gesture.
So what is Valentine’s Day like for these cupids? What exactly do the Valentine’s Day insiders see, from their position behind the presents?
‘The stakes were high, and the bouquet had to be anonymous’
Anna Day, co-founder of sustainable florists, The Flower Appreciation Society
The Valentine’s Day that stands out in my mind is the year that a man asked us to make the most beautiful bouquet. He had just realised that he had fallen in love with his best friend.
He wanted to send her flowers, but he wasn’t ready, yet, for her to know about his changed feelings. So the delivery had to be entirely anonymous. He sent us frantic texts every half hour, changing his mind about the message he wanted to accompany them.
It felt like a very high stakes bouquet! We made it, delivered it, and soon after she called us up. She was desperate to know who had sent them, but we were sworn to secrecy! She did find out, in the end, but not from us. And a couple of years later, they were happily married.
‘One woman burst into tears when a proposal prank went wrong’
Daisy Amodio, founder of The Proposers – a bespoke marriage proposal planning agency
We’ve created 5,000 proposals, ranging from £500 in budget to over a million, and in countries across the world. Proposals around Valentine’s Day, or in the month of love, are always popular.
Every single event has ended in a happy engagement, but there have been plenty of hairy moments along the way.
There was the time a guy wanted to propose in a cat cafe (where you can pet dozens and dozens of cats while drinking your tea). I had to hide in a broom cupboard, desperately trying not to spoil the surprise and having to suppress a thousand sneezes because I’m highly allergic to cats.
There was the time someone wanted to propose on the walkway above Tower Bridge. We got him a time slot, and then – I kid you not – he got lost. He couldn’t find Tower Bridge. Eventually, they had to open it up for a passing boat.
We had to pack everything up and run to the park opposite, so he could propose with a view of the bridge instead. There was a couple whose relationship was based on pranks, so the man asked us to stage his partner’s arrest as part of the proposal. We hired actors to pretend to be police, bundled her into a cop car and she burst into tears (she found it absolutely hilarious in the end, thank goodness, and loved it).
But the one I’ll never forget involved a woman proposing to a man – she’d been hoping he would propose for over a decade, then finally got bored of waiting so decided to do it herself. After all that time, she wanted to go big. Really big. There were so many moving parts to her plan. And so much scrutiny. Because she settled on doing it in the middle of Piccadilly Circus, using the big screens, with a live band playing their favourite music and about 1000 pairs of eyes on them.
Plus, her partner was a really shy guy, so you might have imagined she’d do it somewhere more private. In all, it definitely felt like there was a bit of jeopardy involved!
They went for supper, left the restaurant, walked to Piccadilly Circus, all with him totally oblivious. Then she announced that she’d left her phone in the restaurant and dashed back, leaving him alone. I held my breath. Suddenly the band started playing. Then, the big LCG screens stopped playing adverts, and started displaying all the reasons she loved him.
In the end, the words “will you marry me?” flashed up, he turned around and she was on one knee with flowers. The whole crowd burst into applause and I finally breathed the biggest sigh of relief. People just love love.
One wife, three lovers – and multiple gifts’
Lucy Litwack, chief executive and owner of luxury lingerie company Coco de Mer
One year, we had a customer who lined up multiple gifts for his wife and three lovers. He went for a business lunch while we wrapped the separate gifts. We had to be so careful not to mix them up as each was a different size and of varying value!
‘I do occasionally worry a bit about people’s romantic gestures’
Paul Pryzybl, TP Tattoo, Peterborough
Getting a tattoo on Valentine’s Day might seem like a grand romantic gesture, but when you’ve been a tattoo artist for a while, you start to see people who regret their choices.
I once had a girl come in with the letter “A” tattooed really obviously and visibly in the middle of the back of her neck. It was her ex-boyfriend’s initial. Now, she was desperate to get rid of it. I converted it into a pineapple and it looked great. But be warned: a lot of the time, you have to use a darker ink to cover up original tattoos. Get someone’s entire name tattooed as a Valentines’ gesture and you might end up having to cover it with a big black panther.
These days, partners’ names are a less popular choice. But I still occasionally worry a bit about people’s romantic gestures. I had a couple come in who each wanted the name of their puppy tattooed on them. It seemed a bit early. They’d only had the dog a few days. What if they split up, one kept the pet and the other ended up with a random dog’s name tattooed on their body? Another time, a guy came in asking for a Norwich FC tattoo because his girlfriend was a massive fan. I thought: “Mate, are you sure? Last time you were in here, you were engaged to a different girl.”
‘Online orders means that customers don’t hold back in the way that they might’
Anon, owner of a high-end florist and gift shop, East Anglia
Now that people order their Valentine’s flowers online, the messages that accompany them have changed too. Customers don’t hold back in the way that they might, if they had to dictate the message to a florist face-to-face or over the phone. You can imagine how much saucier they are, when people are typing their fantasies and feelings onto an anonymous screen instead.
Which is great, people should feel liberated to send whatever they want with their flowers! But there’s always someone sitting at another computer somewhere, processing your order, reading that message and maybe – just maybe – having a little giggle with their colleagues...
‘We had five members of the team just spreading the rose petals’
Simon Mahon, general manager at The Grand, York
My favourite, and perhaps most wonderful story was when a gentleman requested help for a proposal. He and his partner worked overseas in different counties and had 24-hours in the same city so the timing really had to go perfectly!
The story was so lovely that not only did word spread across the entire hotel team (who were extremely excited), but it got around all the other guests too, who were loving the excitement.
It felt like the bride-to-be was the only person in the building who didn’t know, so we had to be incredibly careful to ensure everyone was discreet and didn’t spoil the surprise. While the couple were out, we arranged rose petals from the entrance of the building all the way to their suite, with little surprises along the way.
We changed a couple of pictures in the hallways to photos of the couple, we changed the name of the Suite to that of the place where they had met and, the music playing throughout the hotel as they entered was their favourite song. It was a lot of pressure to transform everything in a short time.
Of course, there were many other guests staying in the hotel, so we had a 60-minute window. When the couple came in, everything looked beautiful and serene – little did they know we had been working away to make it perfect until the last minute.
We had five members of the team just spreading the rose petals, and they were really something – in total it stretched for around 100 metres which looked (and smelled) incredible. The clear-up later was quite a job! But of course, she said yes, and they still celebrate their anniversary at the hotel.
‘It can be the worst night of the year if you’re on the other side of the table’
Francis Woolf, restaurateur and private caterer, Norfolk
The upside is that everyone wants to make a good impression on a Valentine’s date. They want to come across as kind and caring. So people rarely make a fuss in a restaurant. They don’t tend to want much interaction with the waiting staff either.
They want the rest of the world to melt away, to have their own quiet, private, extra special experience, as if they’re the only ones in the room.
Of course, you want that for them too. Every couple in there could have a lot riding on this meal, so you’re working really hard to make sure it goes right. Which means, in many ways, it’s the worst night of the year if you’re on the other side of the table and working in the restaurant trade.
Say your restaurant has 30 covers. On a normal night you’d maybe have a table of six, which is nice and easy, another of three, maybe a four. On Valentine’s night, you are basically guaranteed to have 15 tables of two. Timing and service are at least twice as hard work.
Everyone wants a dinner date, so the place is full and you’re likely to have designed a special set menu, which means you’ll be putting in longer hours. All of which means that, in all the years I’ve been working in the restaurant industry, I don’t think I’ve ever had a romantic Valentine’s Day myself. Making sure that other people’s dates are perfect really wrecks your own romance.
