Valentine's Day has just passed. No doubt there are now thousands of couples around the world celebrating the start of their romantic journey together, either because of an exciting engagement, a rekindled love, or a new marriage.

While traditional stereotypes of love focus on hand-written letters and kissing on a park bench, this is 2015. Digital love is here, and that means couples are increasingly turning to technology for everything from communication and romantic ideas to ordering flowers and creating personalised gifts.

Predictably, there are a never-ending list of apps that are aimed at couples, and lots of them are pretty useless. Luckily for you, we've created a list of what we believe to be the eight most essential:

1) Couple [No Longer Available]

The principle behind Couple is that it allows two people to create their own private timeline of their relationship by sharing pictures, videos, dates, and audio clips.

In reality, the app does much more than that. In addition to its timeline, it also includes an instant messaging service (similar to Whatsapp), photos that can be set to disappear after a certain amount of time (similar to Snapchat), a way to draw pictures together in real-time, a search function to help you find romantic restaurants and night-life destinations, shared to-do lists, a web app, and a calendar.

It's already in use by more than two million couples worldwide, and with an average review of 4.5 stars on the Play Store, this is easily our most highly recommended app for you and your partner.

2) Couple Tracker [No Longer Available]

It's a sad truth that a huge percentage of fledgling relationships end in tears. Reasons for possible breakups are too numerous to list in a tech article, but suffice to say that one party cheating on their significant other is certainly one of the more common explanations.

Couple Tracker aims to address this problem with an app that is designed to add a layer of transparency to a couple's relationship. The concept behind it is that it will allow you access to all the call history, texts, Whatsapps, Facebook comments, and GPS locations of your partner's phone from your own device. It's nearly impossible to hide, as the always-on service can forward new notifications to your partner's phone instantaneously.

There is a small element of privacy -- the app only reveals a limited number of characters of any Facebook update or text message -- but in practice your communications will be shown 24/7. Be sure that both you and your partner willingly consent to using the app, though, because tracking your partner's actions without their consent is stalking.

3) Our Groceries

Once the honeymoon period of a new relationship starts to wear off, the nitty-gritty of running your lives together starts to take hold. Someone needs to take responsibility for the more mundane aspects of life like walking the dog, paying the electric bill, and doing the weekly shopping.

Our Groceries tries to make at least one of those tasks a little more streamlined with an app that lets you create shared shopping lists, meaning you'll never waste money by both coming home with the same carton of eggs again.

You can create lists using the built-in items or adding your own, and then share them with your partner. Once one of you buys an item you cross it off the list and the changes will be synced across all connected devices. The app also works the other way – if you forgot to tell the love of your life that they need to buy milk on the way home, you can send them an instant notification.

4) The Chocolate App (USA only) [No Longer Available]

Nothing says "I love you" quite like a box of chocolates (except an engagement ring, perhaps!). If you don't want to head out into the cold night to buy your significant other a box of something sweet, then this app can help.

The app is operated by Philadelphia Candies, a family chocolate manufacturer that has been in business since 1919 and earned rave reviews for the quality of their product. It lets you browse their choices and order boxes directly from your Android device before paying with PayPal. They ship nationwide.

5) Kissing Tips [No Longer Available]

Do you know what a butterfly kiss is? Neither did we until we found this app.

As you might expect, it offers users step-by-step tips on how to kiss each other in a multitude of different ways -- ranging from the romantic and widely recognised French kiss to the less widely-used Eskimo kiss.

There are 47 different kissing styles in total and each one comes complete with a guide and accompanying illustrations.

6) 1-800-Flowers

Did you forget your partner's birthday or anniversary? 1-800-Flowers has the answer; never again will you have to pick up a rubbish card and half-dead bouquet from your local petrol station!

Although it's United States-based, the app lets you send flowers, plants, and other gifts to 195 different countries around the world -- with same day delivery offered in many of them. In addition to birthdays and anniversaries, they also offer seasonal specials on other major holidays like Christmas, Hanukkah, and Thanksgiving, and they even offer users the ability to add hand-written cards to their orders.

Having been in business for more than 30 years, they are a reliable firm with a wide network of brands that will be familiar to many Europeans and North Americans.

7) Avocado [No Longer Available]

Like the aforementioned Couple app, Avocado is a private and secure way for couples to stay connected.

You can text your partner, share various media formats with them, and use its built-in calendar for reminders about birthdays, anniversaries, and other important dates. For people in long distance relationships, it also offers virtual hugs and kisses, giving you the feeling of being in closer proximity to your loved one.

It even lets you know if your partner's battery is about to die, so you won't be left wondering if you're just being ignored! Finally, its web app lets you access all your messages, pictures, and other data, meaning you'll never be cut off from your other half even if you are without mobile connectivity.

It uses advanced data encryption and security features, and the developers go to great lengths reassure their users that their messages, photos, videos, and other secrets are all perfectly safe.

8) Kindu for Couples

Kindu is an app for the bedroom, helping couple to explore their desires and fantasies without potential embarrassments.

It works by asking both you and your partner a series of questions about what gets you going, then reveals the topics about which you both answered the same way. Categories are diverse, covering the soft and sensual to the more outlandish and risqué, and includes areas of interest such as sex toys, role playing, group sex, foreplay, public sex, and fetishes. Its passcode protected, so there's no chance you'll be accidentally exposed, and even includes a way for you to suggest love-making ideas to your partner anonymously.

The app has regularly featured in top ten lists and comes highly recommended by a wide variety of publications, from Yahoo News and Mashable to FemaleFirst and Parenting.com.

Your Tips?

What do you and your partner use to stay in touch? Do you have any app tips for people in long distance relationship or who need some new excitement in their lives? Have you used any of the apps we've discussed?

We'd love to hear from you! Let us know your thoughts and feedback in the comments below.