Mailing your wedding invitations is the little details that very often can get overlooked. Since it's one of the first impressions that your family and friends will have about your wedding, it's important to get it right.
Whether you made them yourself or ordered them from a professional printer, you've most likely put a lot of time, effort and money into the design of your wedding invitations. It's time to mail them out, but do you know how? Mailing out your wedding invitations is a lot more than just slapping a stamp on them and dropping them in the closest mailbox. Read on for top tips and guidelines to ensure your wedding invitations get to their destination on time and in pristine condition.
Postage
First things first, when you receive your wedding invitations, put together one complete invitation (including all added inserts, tissue paper, invitation jackets, bows, etc.) and take it to your local post office. They will measure and weigh your invitation and let you know exactly how much your postage will be. Both size and weight can affect the amount of postage you need to pay, so if you are trying to save money on postage, consider the amount of embellishments you add to your wedding invitations.
Don't assume your invitation will be the same amount of postage as your gas and electric bill; going into the post office and having it weighed and measured by a postal worker will ensure your wedding invitations don't get returned to you for insufficient postage. If you have a uniquely sized RSVP card, you will want to have that looked at by the post office as well. Irregularly shaped envelopes generally require more postage too.
Wedding Stamps
The post office usually has a selection of wedding themed postage stamps that you can use on your wedding invitations, or you can customize your own. Personalized wedding stamps have become increasingly popular and can be designed and created at a large number of websites. You can personalize them with your wedding colors, your wedding theme, or you can even put a picture of the happy couple on the wedding stamp itself. A personally created wedding stamp is the ultimate final touch in accessorizing your wedding invitations.
Hand Canceling
When you mail a letter at the post office it is processed and filed through machines with all the other letters that get mailed on a daily basis. Most wedding invitations are thicker, larger or different shaped than regular mail however, and run a higher risk of getting stuck or damaged in these machines. You can avoid this risk by having your wedding invitations hand canceled, which means they will be processed by hand and not put through automated processing machines.
When you are set to mail your wedding invitations, hand deliver them to a postal worker at the post office and ask that they be hand cancelled with a rubber stamp. Not only will this ensure your beautiful invitations don't get caught in any machinery, it will minimize the amount of printing markings and bar codes that get put on the invitation.
Changes in Postage
From time to time the postal service raises the price of stamps. To avoid returned invitations or non-delivered RSVP cards, be sure to check for any changes in postage that will be occurring. You may even have to put a different amount of postage on the return envelope than on your wedding invitation.
If you are unsure of when your guests will be mailing back their RSVP cards, consider Forever stamps for the RSVP envelopes. Forever stamps were developed by the postal service to help consumers ease the transition during price changes. Forever stamps do not have a denomination and will be honored whenever they are used with no need for additional postage for a one-ounce letter mailing.
Follow these simple wedding postage tips, and you can make sure your save-the-date cards, wedding invitations, RSVP cards and thank you notes are all delivered on time and in the condition they were sent in.
About the Author:
PerfectWeddingGuide.com helps Brides and Grooms through the sometimes challenging, but always exciting process of planning a wedding and honeymoon. Any wedding planner or bride can benefit from the unique wedding guide tips, trends, and helpful wedding planning tools at PerfectWeddingGuide.com.
You can find more wedding postage samples here: Wedding Postage
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