When you mail your invitations, no matter the weight or postage amount, the USPS will run them through both canceling and sorting machines. The first, a canceling machine, literally cancels through the postage on the outer envelope so it cannot be reused. The second machine, a sorter, adds a barcode to the bottom of the outer envelope which assists in trafficking it to the appropriate post office of your guest.
Many brides choose to hand cancel their invitations and it's a measure I highly recommend. It's one less machine your beloved paper will be forced through and the hand canceling stamp is a much cleaner marking on your envelopes.
In New York City, the USPS hand cancels the first 50 invitations for free. After 50, they charge $.05 per envelope. I paid a measly $4 total for all of my invitations to be hand canceled and they arrived in fine condition.
The USPS is tough on mail. Your envelopes will get scratched, ripped and inked before their arrival. And there's no avoiding the sorter machine, period. But after laboring and licking 100+ invitations, isn't it worth your Starbuck's coffee in change to have the poor postal worker at your local counter hand cancel your babies? You owe it to your sanity.
left: machine cancel right: hand cancel
My fiancé and I hiked to the main post office in Manhattan on 8th ave to have our invitations hand canceled. We paid the 5 cents per invitation for the service. When we received the invitation we mailed to ourselves, it was obviously machine canceled. Super disappointing.
ReplyDelete