Post Office Guidelines: Planning for your wedding invitations
With all the recent changes to postage at USPS, I wanted to do a bit of digging to put together a handy guide for our lovely brides!
Most of you will be sending your wedding invitations though domestic mail (meaning it stays in the U.S). We have handled international orders before and advise that you take your invitations to your local post office to get exact postage quotes.
At Anthology Print, we carry sizes that typically fit into a 5x7 envelope or can be classified as a postcard. According to USPS, postcards are 1 item/card and cannot exceed 4x6 size. Postcard postage is .35 cents per card and can be dropped off in bulk at your local post office or picked up in your mail boxes. These 4x6 postcards can be used for a variety of wedding stationery including: prestamped RSVP postcards for guests, Thank You postcards, or a small Save-the-Date card. We use them most often for Thank You postcards as a couple can provide a wedding photo and design up a small thank you note on the back.
With USPS, letters with an envelope cannot exceed a thickness of 0.125 inch, and cannot be larger than 11.5 inches by 6 inches. These stamps will cost .55 cents each. Our standard envelopes (white & cream) are 5.125 x 7.125 and fit our 5x7 cards nicely, as well as our folding gatefold cards. The gatefold cards are not too thick to mail (you’d have to be putting at least 3-5 pieces in the envelope with it). We also offer colored envelopes (kraft, black, navy, pearl, silver) and those are slightly larger at a 6x8 size. These still fit the 5x7 cards and gatefolds very well, with not too much extra on the sides.
If you are worried about your wedding invitations, either with size or weight, we advise taking a few assembled cards down to your local post office to have them checked. When you are adding wax seals to the outer envelopes, you will need to get them hand checked. This means a postal worker (or you at the post office!) will need to stamp each of the envelopes by hand. This voids out the stamp and essentially cuts out the need for the machine to sort out the invites and stamp them. This may require additional postage- check your office for information on hand checking your invites.
USPS does not accept square envelopes or postcards as they do not go through machines well. It is an additional cost per piece of mail for irregular sizes. We currently do not offer square invitations, but have in the past- we just advised sending out the invites in a 5x7 envelopes instead of the square!
When you are addressing your envelopes, there are a few guidelines laid out by the postal service- if an address is unclear or written to the wrong place, it won’t get delivered. Here are a few tips:
-Print the address clearly in capital letters - Use a pen or fine tip marker -Do not use commas or periods - Include the Zip +4 code (if possible) - Print recipient’s address in the bottom center of the envelope
We offer return address printing and design at an additional cost and we believe it is well worth the cost! Not having to hand write your address as well as your guest will save you hours and hand cramps. Check out our envelope print pricing here.
You can take your addressed and assembled wedding invitations to your local post office and drop them off at either the lobby drop (safest option and dry!) or the blue outdoor collection boxes. You can also put them in your mailbox in smaller bundles for the carrier to pickup.
Let me know if you have any questions or have tips to add to the list! We’re all ears!
