St Valentine’s Day is just around the corner, and of course it’s traditional to buy a lovely bunch of flowers for your sweetheart. Like most holidays, Valentine’s Day is so commericalised these days that it’s easy for florists to whack their prices up around this time of year.

So here at Happy Valentines we’ve put together a few tips to help you get the best possible deal on flowers this Saint Valentine’s Day, or whenever you want to show your love with lilies or your passion with peonies!

Plan Ahead

Do your research – always know what you want before you contact the florist, and ask for a quote straight away. Don’t let the florist sell you their oldest stock at the highest price. If they can they will. It’s a business and stock needs to be rotated.

Choose Carefully

Red roses can quadruple in price around valentines and the quality can vary dramatically due to high trading volumes and early or late harvesting on the rose farms. For the same price as a dozen red roses, you can buy 3 or 4 dozen in another colour. Try  pink or orange and ask for a dark sexy foliage like red cordyline or black thai leaves.

Length of roses dictates their price as well, and although the florist will try to convince you that 1 metre long roses are better, it’s not necessarily the case unless you are buying a single rose.  For a bouquet, Anything around 40cm in length is fine and will look impressive in most vases.

Demand Good Service

Also, because of the high volume of deliveries around valentines day, unless you stand out as an important customer, you are likely to recieve another standard bunch of flowers made by a swarm of work experience students or junior florists. Trust me, every florist does this and the standard always slips on valentines.

Be Sneaky!

The best way to get excellent service, better value and more beautiful flowers on valentines or any other time is through a little deception!

Pretend the recipient is a famous celebrity who goes by an ‘alias’ (the name you give them). Or pretend the recipient owns or operates an events company, is just starting up a restaurant or is in any kind of position of power to order lots of flowers in the future, and make a big deal out of the florists opportunity to get big business out of one bouquet.

A customer like this will always be at the front of the queue for delivery slots, choice flowers, and will have the best florist arranging their bouquet.

If all of that fails, or if you can’t be bothered trying to negotiate a better deal with someone in person, you can always rely on a service like Interflora!

You might have seen some list of the ‘Greatest Love Songs Ever’ or the ‘Top Valentine’s Songs’ – you’ve probably also seen far too many vomit-inducing TV ads trying to tempt you into a buying multiple CDs worth of that sort of dross. Well, we like to do things a little differently, so rather than wheel out all the so-called classics, our list is chosen by you, music listeners!

Well, to be fair, it’s courtesy of Last.fm’s chart of Top Tracks for the tag ‘love’. It’s basically the songs that they’ve scrobbled as being played the most, that people frequently tag with the tag ‘love’. It’s all in a handy widget from Amazon so you can listen and even buy if you want – so here we go!

You can get 20% off purchases from the Cafe Press marketplace. Cafe Press has all sorts of stuff with a massive range of designs so you’ll be sure to find the perfect Valentines present for someone you love.

Just use this code when you check out your purchase!

LOVE20

Slideshow of a Valentine’s themed episode of the popular show Grey’s Anatomy, “Valentine’s Day Massacre”. Enjoy!

SlideshowGrey’s Anatomy “Valentine’s Day Massacre” Episode Photos

BuddyTV Slideshow | ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Episode 6.14 “Valentine’s Day Massacre” Photos.

As usual, spammers and scammers chase whatever is topical…

Eat your heart out, cupid. Valentine’s Day still is nearly two weeks away, but the lover’s holiday is already attracting the attention of the web’s criminal element.

SC Magazine

Interesting article and comment thread on having a thrifty Valentine’s Day celebration:

Ever since a friend of mine in the restaurant business sighed wearily and said, “The prices are jacked up and the service is lousy. Just stay away,” I’ve followed her advice and avoided eating out on the weekend that falls closest to Valentine’s Day.

We are now into the month of February, and everyone knows what day comes in February – Valentine’s Day. So now is the time for all you hopeless romantics out there to think of ways to make the 14th February extra special for the one you love.

And if you get really stuck, then you could always take some tips from chick-flick actress Julia Roberts, who stars in the upcoming movie “Valentine’s Day.” According to limelife.com, Roberts decided to give some Valentine’s Day tips to a fan recently.

At a recent press conference for her new movie “Valentine’s Day,” Julia decided to give up some of her simple romantic secrets on how to have a good time on that special day. A fan was believed to have asked Julia a question about Valentine’s Day.

When the fan asked Julia how she could make her partner make her happy on V-Day, Julia laughed and said “Wow. Can we at least dim the lights?” After her initial joke, Julia went straight to the point and asked the woman if she’d had sex with her boyfriend already.

After the woman told Julia that her boyfriend had called her a “bad planner,” Julia said that she should make a nice dinner reservation, have a nice glass of wine, and then take her top off. Well that definitely gets straight to the point doesn’t it!

From In Entertainment.

Nice sarcastic article about the joys of Valentine’s Day!

The phone rings. It’s a woman’s magazine. It wants a piece about how miserable it is being a single bloke on Valentine’s Day. Apparently some survey, somewhere, has found that single men find the day traumatic and are even more likely than women to spend it mournfully clutching stuffed animals and sobbing along to Lionel Richie ballads when no cards arrive.

The Times

Welcome to the new Happy Valentines website, your guide to everything to do with Valentine’s Day.

Smoochie-woochie woo, snuggle bunnies and snuggle bears!