The Post Offices of Love and Romance

Sep 9, 2020 0 comments

The town of Bridal Veil, located in Multnomah County, Oregon, the United States, a little distance from the Bridal Veil waterfalls, remains awfully quiet throughout the year, except during wedding season. Thanks to its unique name and a small one-room post office—the town’s only functioning business—Bridal Veil sees an influx of would-be couples every spring and summer, who come to this forgotten outpost just to get their wedding invitation mails cancelled by a special postmark.

Bridal Veil Postage stamp

Located just off Interstate 84 by the Columbia River, Bridal Veil’s post office is housed inside a small wooden shed, roughly ten feet square, which makes it America’s third smallest post office. About 95 percent of all mails that pass through this post office are wedding invitation. In terms of actual figure, around two hundred thousand. Each mail is hand cancelled by specially crafted stamps—one depicting two interlocking hearts, and another depicting two interlocking doves. The couples decide which one that want, and it isn’t just American couples who are drawn to here. Wedding invitations pour in from all around the world, as far as South Korea and Australia.

Bridal Veil was established in 1886 during Oregon’s logging boom as a company town for the Bridal Veil Falls Lumbering Company. Trees were logged on Larch Mountain and the cut wood was brought down via log flumes to the saw mills in Palmer, another logging town located about one and a half mile up the mountain from Bridal Veil. The rough-cut timber then travelled down another flume to the finishing mill in Bridal Veil.

Bridal Veil Post Office

Bridal Veil Post Office. Photo: w0bbly/Flickr

In 1936, fire struck the town of Palmer and devastated the saw mill. With timber resources already dwindling, the company decided to shut operation and sold the town of Bridal Veil and its mills to another company that became the Bridal Veil Lumber and Box Company. This new company produced wooden cheese boxes for Kraft Food Company until 1960, when it too closed its doors. At that time, the town had about a hundred residents. Although the company shuttered, the mill did not and it continued to operate under various owners through 1988. After the mill closed the remaining residents dispersed and the town was abandoned. Only the post office remained standing, manned by a single clerk.

Another much sought-after postal destination for couples is Romance in Arkansas, the United States. Unlike Bridal Veil, Romance is lightly populated with a few scattered buildings, a couple of businesses and two churches. The days leading up to Valentine’s Day and the wedding season are the busiest times of the year for Romance’s post office. Thousands of valentine day’s cards and wedding invitations pass through the post office to be cancelled by specially designed postal stamps that read: “Sending Love from Romance, AR 72136”.

Romance, Arkansas postage stamp

The town got its name from a small spring that was a very popular dating spot. It’s said that it was a local schoolteacher who suggested the area be called Romance, and the name stuck.

Romance’s post office started selling love-based stamps with bluebirds and a heart in the design in 1990. They became an immediate hit and people lined up to get into the small building. Today, Romance’s customers are located all over the world, as far as China and Japan.

Those who wish to get their cards stamped should send them inside a larger envelope (after putting the address of that special person with the appropriate postage) and mail them to the following addresses.

For Bridal Veil, Oregon:
VISTA STATION or MULTNOMAH FALLS STATION
POSTMASTER/PHILATELIC SERVICES
1 W MILL RD
BRIDAL VEIL OR  97010-9998

For Romance, Arkansas
VALENTINE’S DAY POSTMARK
POSTMASTER
292 HIGHWAY 31
ROMANCE, AR 72136-9998

References:
# Sharon Nesbit, The story of a ghost town, https://web.archive.org/web/20070312195913/http://www.theoutlookonline.com/features/story.php?story_id=115254918199156000
# Hallie Jackson, Why Brides Are Flocking to This Tiny Post Office, https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/why-brides-grooms-are-flocking-tiny-post-office-n369271
# https://about.usps.com/news/state-releases/or/2016/or_2016_0527.htm
# https://about.usps.com/news/state-releases/ar/2017/ar_2017_0130.htm
# Laura Monteverdi, Love is in the air, and in the mail, at the post office in Romance, Ark., https://www.thv11.com/article/life/holidays/love-is-in-the-mail-at-the-post-office-in-romance-arkansas/91-c336e64c-53b5-49da-8fed-2a4471ba842f

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