Love was in the air last Tuesday as Emerson students donned their pink and red clothing for Valentine’s Day, many eager to enjoy the day with their friends and loved ones. 

Despite Valentine’s Day falling on a school day this year, many students celebrated the holiday by having romantic evenings with their significant others, hanging out with close friends, or, in some cases, meeting strangers for dinner. 

Eamon Hewitt and Aileen O’Leary, both first-year visual and media arts majors, met during their first semester at Emerson at a “residents’ picnic” at the Esplanade hosted by the tenth floor of Little Building. For Valentine’s Day, the two had a date night in the dorms because the restaurants they wanted to go to were fully booked. 

“I surprised her with an indoor picnic in my room,” Hewitt said. “I hung string lights around, got some drinks, ordered pizza, and got her a bouquet, a succulent, and a necklace.”

Some students were lucky enough to snag tables at local restaurants.

After a dinner reservation in the North End and a dessert of chocolate-covered strawberries, first-year political communications major Julia Borque and her visiting boyfriend Colby Chandler spent the evening in Cambridge, listening to music and talking. 

“It was a very sweet and romantic night,” Borque said.

Not everyone on Valentine’s Day celebrated with a significant other, however. Many students took the evening to celebrate with their friends.

Devon Beacham, a sophomore media arts production major, booked a reservation for herself, her roommate, and six other people at a restaurant to enjoy a spontaneous night of quality time. The only catch, she said, was she hadn’t yet asked anyone to join her. 

“I decided for us to book a reservation and made it for eight people with no idea who to bring at the time,” she said. “We picked our outfits and it wasn’t until 20 minutes before the Uber came that we had a group of eight.”

Beacham said if she couldn’t come up with eight people, she was going to ask random people on social media if they needed Valentine’s Day plans. 

Just in time, Beacham was able to avoid spending the evening with complete strangers.

“It ended up being a group of people where I was their mutual friend, so it wasn’t totally random,” she said.

The Student Government Association set up a table on Feb. 6 for students to deliver free Valentine’s candy grams around campus for the holiday, and hosted a platonic speed-dating event in the Dining Hall on the same day. 

The Valentine’s Day candy grams were an Emerson tradition from the past before current seniors were even on campus. But that was until senior Alex Alvarado, the SGA student experience senator for the class of 2023, wanted to revive the tradition. 

“It was actually my idea; it’s actually been a very long time coming because I proposed the idea in November for a week of love,” Alvarado said. 

She said her inspiration for these plans was to do something fun for Valentine’s Day to connect students with each other. After the planning and execution of these events took about one month, they were a “great success,” according to Alvarado.