A total of 1,870 couples celebrated Valentine’s Day by tying the knot at marriage registration centers across the city yesterday — more than four times the average daily figure.

The Pudong New Area marriage registration center was the busiest with 369 couples saying “I do,” followed by Chongming (146) and Minhang (138) districts, Shanghai’s Civil Affairs Bureau said.

Ten couples queued outside Yangpu District marriage registration center yesterday morning for up to an hour before it opened at 8:30am. “It is a beautiful thing to marry on a romantic sweet day,” said Grace Zheng, 28, who was married at the center yesterday.

The center issued more than 70 marriage certificates on Valentine’s Day, double the normal number, according to its director Yu Weiting. But she added local registration centers had witnessed a big decline of couples opting for Valentine’s Day weddings over the past two years.

“In the past several years, there was a boom of marriage registration on some special days which actually were just a lucky number combination, but local couples are more rational now,” said Yu.

The prices of roses also soared yesterday. The average price of a rose is about 8 yuan (US$1.16) — yesterday it surged to 15 yuan.

The reduced output of roses due to weather conditions, and increased labor and transportation costs, had also pushed up prices, said a flower shop owner surnamed Huang in Caojiadu Flower Market.

Huang said her flower business had boomed yesterday with sales 10 times higher than normal.

There was a 20 to 30 percent rise in hotel bookings for the day in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou, with over half of those who had booked a room born after 1990, according to online travel operator Tongcheng. Amusement parks were also a favorite destination for lovebirds yesterday, the operator added.