Four-year-old Braydie concentrates during the nail hammering event at the 50th Love Winter Festival on Saturday. (submitted photo/Sally Gerski)

By Susan McNeil

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The Village of Love was named after a rail conductor, but amorous couples from around the world are not too concerned with that as they look to tie the knot.

Looking to capitalize on public fascination with their name, village Mayor Shelley Vallier says they have almost completed the construction of a wedding chapel that will hold 50 or 60 people.

“We had new siding put on, new shingles put on, totally gutted the inside of the building, vaulted the ceilings and put pine on the walls and ceilings. It looks beautiful inside there right now,” she said.

The interior of the almost finished Chapel in Love (submitted photo/Village of Love)

Two big jobs remain to be done; the chapel needs a steeple and a bell, which they have but have not installed.

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“It’s a CNR old train bell that we’re going to convert and use as a bell in our chapel,” Vallier said.

The building itself is an old CPR bunk house from Choiceland that is being converted.

It fits, Vallier said, given that the community is named after Tom Love, the first conductor to operate a train into the Love Siding, as it was called then.

It’s thanks to railroad companies that Love ever came to be.

A local committee runs a festival that coincides with Valentine’s Day as much as it can and some of the money raised goes to finish the chapel, a project that has being ongoing for several years.

“We had a wonderful festival, a really good turnout, really nice weather,” she said of this past Saturday’s event.

The festival features events like nail-hammering, leg wrestling and the ever-popular pillow fight.

Another fun part of celebrating in the community is that Canada Post has gotten onside and allows the local postmaster to cancel mail with a heart or teddy bear stamp and then send them on.

The idea is popular in China with about 40 letters per year sent through Love as part of Chinese New Year’s celebrations.

Wedding invitations have come from as far as Turkey or Peru in the past, just to be stamped and sent on their way.

With not much left to be done, Vallier anticipates the chapel being open for weddings this summer.

They know the demand is there. Vallier said that even without the chapel, couples have come and married in front of the post office or during the annual Love Winter Festival.

“We just thought that being a small village with a small population, our streams of revenue are very limited so the Love and District Recreation Committee decided that one of the ways we could help the village with new streams of revenue is to start by building this chapel,” she said.

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susan.mcneil@pattisonmedia.com