Your invites are complete! Now what’s next? Most might stress at the thought of mailing wedding invites, but it doesn’t have to be an overwhelming ordeal! Here’s a few of our favorite tips and tricks to get them sent off worry-free!
#1: Leave yourself plenty of time
Get organized about a month before your desired invitation send-out date. This should be six to eight weeks before the wedding, which allows your guests adequate time to respond. Giving guests plenty of response time ensures that you will get a reliable head count a week or two before the event.
#2: Double check your guest list against your completed invites
It’s important to know that when addressing each envelope, be sure to spell out all words in an address on your wedding envelopes. Rather than “St.,” “P.O. Box,” and “Apt.,” use “Street,” “Post Office Box,” and “Apartment.” This applies to city and state names as well; instead of abbreviations, write “Saint Paul, Minnesota” and “Washington, District of Columbia.”
#3: Number the backs of your RSVP card or RSVP envelope
Put a little number on the back of your RSVP cards that corresponds to your own numbered guest list. You’d be surprised at how many people return their RSVP cards without writing their names on them! With this number system, if a guest fails to write their name on their RSVP card, and all you know is someone wants chicken, you’ll still be able to figure out whose RSVP it is.
#4: Stamp the RSVP envelopes
You don’t want your guests to drop their envelopes in the mail without a stamp or to make them pay for postage to RSVP to your event. Make it easy for them to reply by including a stamp on the RSVP envelope.
#5: Weigh a complete invitation bundle
Before you mail your wedding invitations, ask the post office to weigh a fully assembled envelope (or contact us an we can give you the weight of your invite bundle) so you know exactly how many stamps you’ll need. This step may sound tedious, but the alternative could mean invites returned for insufficient postage. Issues like this will throw your entire wedding planning timeline for a loop.
#6: Always take your cards inside the post office
For extra peace of mind (and to avoid risking your invitations having to battle the elements), never drop them off in a street-side mailbox. If you hand them to a person at the post office directly, they are less likely to get damaged in transit. You can also ensure you’ve done everything correctly, from the postage to the writing of the addresses.
#7: Consider hand canceling
Ask the post office to hand cancel your stamps. Instead of letting the post office run the invites through a machine-operated sorting system (which marks the envelope with thick lines in the top right corner and may damage the envelope in the process) ,ask them to “hand cancel” your invitations. They’ll use a special ink stamp to mark your invitation and sort it by hand. This greatly reduces the risk of the damage. While some post offices refuse to do this, most are flexible if you pop in during a slow time.
Wedding Invite Etiquette
Lastly, if you’re wondering about proper etiquette rules for wording your wedding invites, check out our informative post here. We’ve got you covered, with tried and true examples covering everything from ceremony cards to RSVPs and everything in between!
mailing wedding invites
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