Choose a style that reflects your wedding’s theme and your personalities
I love picking out stamps for invitations and social stationery. If I’m mailing a check to pay a bill I’ll use the forever bell or flag stamps, but when it comes to a party or holiday, I prefer to buy themed stamps.
Wedding White Roses; LOVE Rings; Wedding Cake
For weddings the post-office offers several themed stamps and every year issues a few new wedding-y designs. This year’s collection includes the Wedding Cake and White Roses shown above. The wedding cake is $0.64 and the roses $0.44. Many wedding invitations will weigh more than $0.44 because of the weight—card stock and inserts can add up—so the post office creates special stamp rates so that your outer envelope isn’t covered in more than one or two stamps.
The Love stamp in the center features two wedding rings and I think a bit more modern in style than the classic white wedding imagery. This stamp has a rate of $0.44.
But you don’t have to use a wedding-themed stamp. You can choose any stamp or group of stamps that fit your wedding’s theme and color palette.
For example, our wedding was retro-inspired with a pastel theme so the white envelopes with lavender calligraphy were stamped with Cary Grant in a tuxedo. I just want to note that the Audrey Hepburn stamps I wanted to use were supposed to be released in time for our wedding invitations, but the USPS pushed the date back to June so they made the photo shoot and I used them for thank you cards. I did call the Post Master General’s office to see if they would release a few to me early but they said no.
Anyway, there is a huge variety of stamps couples can choose from including stamps that reflect nature and locations. I pulled the Garden of Love and Edward Hopper stamps (both $0.44) to illustrate both options.
Before visiting your local post office check out their website and Google stamp collection sites for ideas. Your post office may not have a large selection to choose from so you may want to browse and order online.
Remember to test the weight and amount of postage before making a large stamp purchase. Take a complete invitation suite to the post office and have the teller weigh and stamp it and then mail it to yourself to make sure the stamp amount is correct, then order your stamps.
And one more thing. You can avoid that automated barcode from being printed on your outer envelope by asking the post office teller to hand-cancel each invitation. I think the first 50 are free and there’s a charge after that, so either pay the nominal fee or go back several days in a row to avoid it.
Anne Chertoff is the author of The Wedding Organizer available at russellandhazel.com
