Valentine’s Day has been a festival to celebrate love and commemorate Christian martyr Valentine since 500 A.D. The festival’s longevity rivals more major celebrations such as Christmas and can be just as powerful whenever two people love each other and are willing to be bound together. Beyond the chocolates, the flowers, and the cards, ways of celebrating the festival vary around the world.

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Newly introduced couples are given five minutes to talk to each potential partner at the summit of the Sydney Tower on Tuesday. Standing at 260 meters above street level, Sydney’s highest viewing platform, a total of 14 singles search for a love match by speed dating on Valentine’s Day while enjoying breathtaking views.

Newlyweds Su Zhijuan (L) and Wu Muyao pose at the Futian District Marriage Registration Office in Shenzhen on Tuesday. The city’s marriage registry offices saw 1,018 couples marry on Valentine’s Day.

Phil Fung (R) and Shawn Klein, life-partners of 18 years, smile on the observation deck of the Empire State Building after their marriage ceremony on the 61st floor of the building in New York, on Tuesday. Lucky couples have been married each year on Valentine Day’s on the top of the Empire State Building for nearly two decades but this year for the first time two same-sex couples said “I do” at the iconic New York landmark since the legalization of gay marriage in June.Sun Yuchen

Changmao, the ram and Chunzi, the doe pass through an arched door on which are written the Chinese characters “I do,” during a cross-species wedding ceremony at Yunnan Wild Animal Park on Valentine’s Day in Kunming, Yunnan Province.  

A couple donate blood at the Shenzhen blood center in Futian District to mark Valentine’s Day on Tuesday. A total of 15 couples donated blood.

Lavona Jones Evans, who turns 100 on Valentine’s Day on Tuesday, poses with her dog at her home in Thatcher, Arizona, the United States, on Jan. 28. The state of Arizona and spirited senior Evans both had a very special reason to celebrate this Tuesday. The Safford homemaker, baker and quilt-maker turned 100 Tuesday, the day when the rugged southwest state marked its centenary.

Sydneysiders Katrina Aplitt (L) and Cameron McCloughan (R) take their wedding vows at dawn on Valentine’s Day on top of the Sydney Harbor Bridge. More than 2.75 million people have climbed the bridge to date, with over 4,000 couples becoming engaged and 20 weddings taking place on the summit of the iron arch 134 meters above Sydney Harbor.