(in the United States of America)
With the love and care put into your wedding invitations, we always recommend “hand-canceling” your postage to avoid them traveling through the USPS processing machines. These machines leave printed tracking marks on envelopes, often strip off wax seals and can even snag handmade envelopes flaps. Machine-processing requires envelopes to be standardized in order to facilitate quick sorting, “machined mail” often has a rough ride and can leave your suites damaged.
Is there an alternative? Yes!
You can “hand-cancel” your postage!
What does “hand-cancel” mean?
Instead of machine processing, you can request that your envelopes be processed by hand. Your postal clerk will mark each postage stamp, on each envelope, with a special rubber stamp noting the current date and the postal location. This bypasses the need for the envelope to be sent through their sorting machines.
How do you “hand-cancel” your postage?
After your suite is addressed, weighed and measured, stuffed, sealed and has the correct postage applied (see our post on ‘mailing your invitation suites’), bring your suites to your local post office.
Ask the clerk to verify you have the correct postage (check, check, double-check) and request they “hand-cancel” your postage.
Once they have finished stamping each piece of postage, they should set them aside to be processed separately from the machined mail.
Things to consider:
Hand-canceling can cost a little bit more - $0.21 more as of 2021. This is not uniformly enforced but it’s worth the extra charge to help ensure your suites arrive to their destination safely.
It takes longer - Part 1. It can take quite a bit of time to stamp all of your postage, depending on how many suites you are sending. Visit your post office during low-traffic hours, avoid right away in the morning, lunch, and the hour before they close.
It takes longer - Part 2. Not only does stamping all of your envelopes take some time, it can also take longer for the USPS to process and deliver them. Plan on hand-canceled invitations taking at least a week longer to arrive to your guests than normal.
Some clerks will tell you they don’t hand-cancel anymore, they’re wrong and you can ask to speak to the office’s manager. If at first you don’t succeed, ask for a second opinion or go to another post office.
If you’re having trouble, bring 50 suites in at a time and return the next day with 50 more until all your suites are done. The only charge you should pay for hand-canceling is the extra $0.21 per suite, if its requested.
You should not hand-cancel your reply envelope postage ahead of time - it will prevent your guests from using the postage.
Ask them to bundle your suites with a rubber band after they are ‘canceled’ to help avoid them getting buried during processing and being accidentally machined. Your suites may be sent through multiple processing centers before reaching your guests and there’s the possibility they won’t be sorted correctly at each step along the way. Bundling them gives them a better chance of being recognized, at least in the beginning.
There’s no guarantee. The USPS is operated by humans and humans make mistakes. They process millions of pieces of mail each day and its possible that not all hand-canceled suites will be pulled for hand processing. However, the tips in this article will give your invitations the best chance they have of arriving safely to their destination.
If it sounds intimidating, you can ask your stationer if they offer postage and mailing services! Stationers have years of experience working with the postal service and can lend their expertise not only in selecting the correct postage but throughout the entire mailing process. We offer complimentary sealing and mailing services for all clients who purchase their postage through us!