PARIS (REUTERS) — Love it or loathe it, the world got passionate Thursday about Valentine’s Day.
From Paris, the capital of cuddles, to Islamic Iran, romantics said “Je t’aime” in all sorts of ways as they declared their affection on the international day of love.
Eleven couples got married on the 80th floor of the Empire State Building, once again New York’s tallest skyscraper following the Sept. 11 attacks that destroyed the 110-story twin towers of the World Trade Center.
The annual ceremonies have been held atop the building since 1994.
And in Thailand, even elephants got in on the act.
Two male and six female elephants were married at a ceremony in the ancient Thai capital of Ayutthaya, though one pair just did what came naturally, despite 3,000 people looking on.
“It is rather tricky trying to stop a 16-year-old elephant groom from consummating his marriage before the ceremony,” said one of the organizers.
The annual smooch-fest, commercialized across the planet, did not quite stretch to every corner of the globe.
Saudi Arabia, home to Islam’s holiest shrines, banned the celebration as a worthless foreign custom and said Muslim religious police would keep a wary eye out for violators.
Some Hindus in India also saw red, though not in the sense Cupid intended.
Police with canes stood guard outside shops and restaurants in Bombay, where activists from the hard-line Shiv Sena group burned greeting cards and gifts and waved placards declaring, “Down with Western Culture. Down with Valentine’s Day.”
The celebration, named after a Christian saint, has become a moneymaker for businesses across the world as its commercialization has spread from the United States.
Florists, lingerie stores, greeting cards firms, jewelers and chocolate and perfume makers traditionally book some of their highest sales of the year on and around Feb. 14.
Less likely expressions of undying love now come in the form of cheese and potatoes, presumably on the grounds that the way to a person’s heart is through the stomach.
The U.S. Dairy Association has mounted a marketing drive this year to turn cheese into a Valentine’s Day treat, while in France, one potato producer is promoting its “Cherie” (Darling) variety in five-pound sacks printed with hearts.
Weddings with a difference
Gimmicks abounded Thursday.
One florist in Athens put a 25-year-old blonde clad in a bikini of red roses and black lace-up boots in the shop window to seduce customers.
“For years, the window display was hearts and roses, and I got bored,” said storeowner Nana Fragia.
At Runaway Bay on Jamaica’s north coast, 10 American couples got hitched without a stitch in a mass nude wedding.
Thirteen couples from Thailand, South Korea and India tied the knot underwater in flippers and wetsuits at a scuba wedding off Thailand’s southern Trang Province.
Five couples, all from the United States, were to marry in midair over the Atlantic on an Icelandair “Honeymoon Express” promotional flight from Baltimore to Reykjavik, wearing wedding dresses and tuxedos.
Two New York cops who fell for each other when working in Brooklyn wed on a morning TV show before a nationwide audience of millions. Earlier, at sunrise, a New Jersey pair celebrated their passion for New York and each other by marrying aboard a commuter ferry on the Hudson River.
There was a serious side to the day as well.
The human-rights group Amnesty International said diamonds, the gift of choice for the wealthy on Valentine’s, were often used to bankroll civil wars in Africa.
“For many people in these countries, diamonds do not symbolize love, but war, misery and poverty,” the group said.
Counseling groups cautioned that the day could prove a burden on the lonesome and those in difficult relationships.
“Some people who buy a dozen red roses will have them thrown back in their faces,” said Paula Hall of British charity Relate.
Valentine’s Day has its origins in the Christian feast of Saint Valentine, the patron saint of romance.
Legend has it he was put to death in the third century for performing Christian marriages for Roman soldiers.
Lovers flocked to the central Italian town of Terni Thursday, where Valentine’s remains are said to rest, but the local bishop refused to be borne away on the wings of romanticism.
“Saint Valentine’s love is more like salt, which gives flavor to an entire life, than chocolate, which satisfies for a moment and then disappears forever,” Bishop Vincenzo Paglia told a special mass.