A card, a bunch of flowers and a love token – the three mandatory ingredients for a Valentine’s Day celebrations. But, do you know just how the custom of giving cards came into being?

Following its metamorphosis from a Christian feast day to a day where lovers celebrated their love through gifts and flowers, the next logical step in the Valentine’s Day celebrations was finding the right words to say it all.

By the 18th century, exchanging gifts and hand-made cards to mark Valentine’s Day was a common sight in England. The first symbols (which are the norm today) of hearts, doves, red roses and cupids began showing up on hand-made cards.

Victorian England could not stem the tide of love hormones that Valentine’s Day celebrations had unleashed. Smelling a profitable opportunity in all that love frenzy, in 1797, a British publisher came out with a journal titled, “The Young Man’s Valentine Writer,” filled with hundreds of readymade sentimental verses for all those who were creatively challenged!

The festival had not yet become commercialised, but that was soon about to change…