How a Tiny, Ghost-Town Post Office Stays Alive

The town's name may play a small role in its popularity
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Jun 6, 2015 6:30 PM CDT
Why Brides Love a Very Small Post Office
Substitute Post Master Andrea Schwartz-Feit, works at the window at the Bridal Veil Post Office Saturday, July 7, 2012, in Bridal Veil, Ore.   (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

Drive up to northern Oregon and you might see a small, nondescript shed in a ghost town called Bridal Veil. It measures about 110 square feet and lacks running water: "It's ... cozy," says Tara Stiller, who works there. "That's a nice way to describe it." It also happens to be a post office that handles 190,000 pieces of bridal mail each year from as far as Australia and South Korea, NBC News reports. Not surprisingly, the town's name plays a tiny role in its popularity: "It's just something different," says newlywed-to-be Christine Dougherty, who's having her invitations sent from Bridal Veil. "Everybody pays attention to the little details." Asked whether she expects people to notice Bridal Veil's name on the postmark, she mutters, "They better notice," and lets out a laugh.

Bridal Veil offers two wedding-themed postmarks—a pair of doves or connected hearts—rather than the usual squiggly lines that "deface the stamp" in post-office machines, reported Grantland last year. All of this makes Bridal Veil one of the ten most popular "wedding post offices" in the US, along with Kissimimee, Fla.; Lovely, Kentucky; and Bliss, NY, the Oregonian reported in 2012. It also keeps Bridal Veil's post office financially afloat in a designated ghost town that's long been abandoned by the lumber industry. The post office seems spirited, too, receiving visits from brides-to-be who hand-deliver invitations: "Oh, it’s so exciting!" says one of the town's few residents. "We wish them luck, we congratulate them, we say to them, It’s so exciiiiiiiiting!" (See why a Seinfeld character who died from licking wedding invitations was really killed off.)

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