Romance orders in Trenton are ordinary and frequent for eleven and a half months of the year, and then there is Valentine's week, which is the only stretch when this market's geography genuinely fights you. Trenton sits against the Delaware with four crossings into Bucks County — the Lower Trenton Bridge with the TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES sign bolted across its truss, the narrow 1884 iron Calhoun Street Bridge with its width and weight limits, the Route 1 Trenton-Morrisville toll bridge, and the tolled I-295 Scudder Falls crossing — and six of our ten studios sit on the Pennsylvania bank. On an ordinary Tuesday that is a feature: it doubles the number of benches that can reach a Trenton address. On February 14 it is a constraint, because every one of those bridges is carrying its own rush hour plus everyone else's flowers. The practical rule for Valentine's week here is simple. Order two or three days ahead, and if you can, pick a studio on the same bank as the recipient. Yardley Florist to a Yardley address, Brookwood Florist to a Trenton one, Mypetalpusher's to Hamilton, Flowers Byjennielynne to Levittown — those runs never touch a bridge, and on the fourteenth that is worth more than any design choice you could make.
The rest of the year, romance in this market is mostly apartments and small houses rather than hotel suites. Downtown Trenton and Mill Hill carry the city's rental stock, along with converted blocks around 08608 and 08611, and those addresses come with the specific problem this city has: shared stoops, mail-slot-only front doors, and buzzer panels whose labels stopped matching the tenants years ago. Give us an apartment number and a phone number and the delivery works; give us a street address alone and the driver is choosing between a shared step and a second trip. The other large slice is students and recent graduates. The College of New Jersey on Pennington Road in Ewing, Rider University on Lawrenceville Road, Thomas Edison State University on West State Street downtown, Mercer County Community College's West Windsor and James Kerney campuses, and Princeton University nine miles up Route 206 all route incoming deliveries through a mail center or a residence-hall desk rather than to a door. Include the residence hall and the recipient's full name as the school has it, and expect a pickup notification rather than a hand-to-hand delivery — which is fine, but tell the recipient to check their email if the surprise depends on timing.