Before you rush off to the post office, take a few moments to prepare and stuff your invitations properly. If your invitation comes with tissue, place that directly on top of the invitation (touching the ink). Then stack the other enclosures in ascending size order (biggest card on the bottom) and tuck all of them inside your fold-over invitation or on top of your invitation, if it is a card. All this goes in your inner envelope (if your invitation comes with one), which gets tucked (unsealed) into the main envelope so the name written on the inner envelope shows as the guest pulls it out.
Mail invitations between 4 to 8 weeks before the wedding. If you have invitations going overseas, you may send these out at 10 weeks to give ample time. It is a good idea to take a sample invitation with all the enclosures to the post office and have it weighed before you buy stamps. Oversized invitations take more postage, and extras such as enclosures and envelope liners increase the overall weight. Remember to buy stamps for the response card envelope and pre-stamp them.
If you can get your post office to hand-cancel your invitations, by all means, go for it. It will create less wear and tear on your invitations.
DO:
- Consider the cost and timing of your printing options.
- Send save-the-date cards so guests can mark their calendars.
- Be Careful when wording your invitations.
- Save several for yourself for framing or placing in a scrapbook.
Don’t:
- Order enclosures you don’t need.
- Think your save-the-date cards must match your invitations.
- Follow strict etiquette rules if they will cause hurt feelings.
Do Try this trick:
Make a numbered, alphabetical list of everyone invited to the wedding. Then, as you’re stuffing the invitations, write the guest’s number on the back of the response card in pencil. This way if a guest forgets to write their name on the card (and this happens all the time), you won’t be stuck trying to guess who they are!
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