It is so exciting to receive your wedding invitations. These are some very important notes and suggestions to follow.
Within 5 days of receipt, please open and check all invitations and accessories. While we never expect to have any shortage, damage, or problem, it is much easier to deal with anything unexpected sooner rather than the night you are completing your assembly. All of our quotes say you will let us know any issue within 5 business days of receipt.
If your envelopes were addressed by a calligrapher, check each one against your list. Calligraphers are human beings and it is possible they can make errors. If your envelopes are addressed by computer, you are responsible for checking each one against your list BEFORE stuffing and mailing them. Your quote includes a purple form to remind you of this. Again, while problems are rare, they are easier to address sooner rather than later.
Take one of your FULLY ASSEMBLED invitations to the post office to confirm the weight and postage required. Stamps are not refundable so you don't want to guess at your postage! We can give you an estimate but ultimately it is the client's responsibility to confirm the accurate current postage if you mail your own invitations.
Once you get your invitations home, this our tried and true method for checking everything.
1. Take all items out on your dining room table and count everything and make alternating stacks of 10 for each product. So go through all the invitation cards, count out 10 and stack, then count out 10 more and stack at a different angle. This makes it easy at a glance to see your quantities and will be very important later. Continue with all pieces making groups of 10 and alternating the stacks for easy counting in groups. Count invitations, envelopes, reply cards, everything. Tissue is not usually necessary to be counted but it never hurts!
2. When you are ready to assemble your invitations, you will take a stack of 10 for each item (invitation, reply card, etc) along with 10 stamps and work in groups of 10. Completely assemble all of those 10 invitations EXCEPT DO NOT SEAL THEM. If you see extra pieces left on your work area after assembling 10 you can deduct you have left something out - you will be surprised how often this happens! Working in sets of 10 makes sure that you don't do this by accident.
3. Wait to seal your envelope until the night before you are ready to take them to the post office. Many people hurry to complete an invitation and stuff stamp and seal it all in one pass, but if there is any crazy unexpected change we can handle just about anything as long as the envelopes are not sealed. So the very very very last thing you will do is steal your envelopes. You can stuff them ahead of time and get them all organized but do not lick them and seal them until you are ready to take them to the post office.
Other important tips:
The inner envelope does not get sealed. It does not have gum and therefore cannot be sealed and it also does not need to be tucked inside the flap of itself. It is left loose. The inner envelope is inserted with the front facing the guest. So they will open the outer envelope, And slide out the inner envelope where they will quickly see their name written on the inner envelope.
You will put a regular first class stamp on the reply envelope. No postage goes on the inner envelope.
The following visuals are from the Crane Wedding Blue Book which is out of print so we have attached images for your reference. In our experience, hand-cancelling is not always worth the time and effort as the self-inking cancelling device can smudge your envelopes more than just letting them go through the machine naturally. The choice is yours! But we do often hand them over the counter to the postal associate rather than just stuffing them in a mail drop since that way they are often fed more carefully through the machine.
