Post Office- Do they still hand sort?

I would go with what your local PO says. You obviously can't tell them what to do even if another PO does it.

I asked my post office in NJ and they said that they still do the "hand cancel" and I would just have to drop it off with them

Unfortunately I don't think you won't be able to request hand sorting service with USPS.

I don't know what hand sorting is. does that mean that it's not sorted by the machine? As opposed to hand cancelling? My invites were hand cancelled but we had to ask for it.

From what I understand, they hand sort funny shaped invitations. You should be able to pay a 20 cent non-machinable fee to get them hand sorted.

Ok That's helpful. I think because they have a high amount of traffic they wont do it and everywhere near me is also pretty high traffic. Now the question becomes do I buy the vintage postage???

The post office doesn't encourage hand-cancelling anymore, but that doesn't mean you can't find a location that won't do it for you. I called ten different locations and finally found one that was willing to do it. I brought my invitations in, and the lady helping me started hand-cancelling only to be reprimanded by someone else behind the counter. I'm not really sure what the big deal is--I had less than 40 invites and it took her less than a minute. My invites were too thick to fit through the machine, so I'm not sure what other options I would have had.

ETA: I'm in Atlanta, and I had to go about 20 minutes outside of the city to find a post office that would do it.

My mom has been a postal clerk for most of my life and she told me that they still do it.

Your best bet would be to go to your area's main post office, what they call the "Processing and Distribution Center." That's where the mail gets sorted to go out to all of the other offices, and that's where they can hand sort them.

Hello, my fiance is a 23 year employee of the USPS. He says they do not specifically hand-sort anymore, anywhere. They only items that every get hand-sorted; maybe, are bulky items (invitations with bows, pearls, bumpy embellishments). The office you take them too may put them in a stack to hand sort ship them to the area plant for processing and then maybe someone would pay attention, but don't expect it. He also stated that he does not recommend wasting money on vintage stamps. There are many options today including "vintage" looking stamps that cost less than a collectors price. I recommend Etsy.com "personal stamps" for something unique. Please note: if the invitations have embellishments that you are worried about; consider purchasing small boxes to mail them in...

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=wedding+invitation+box+mailing&page=2

Sorry and good luck.

T

My husband is a total stamp geek and we use vintage stamps for everything we mail out (including our wedding invites and RSVPs). They go through the machines just fine.

What's vintage postage? must know, sounds awesome

This entire post has confused the hell out of me. Why do they need to be hand sorted? And wtf is vintage postage and how is it different than any other postage?

I think the OP means hand cancelled? I looked into it for my invites before deciding that it's more trouble than it's worth. Hand cancelled is when a post office employee (or in some cases they make you do it yourself) hand stamps the invite instead of running it through a machine. It's supposed to help keep the envelopes in good condition, so that they still look good when they're delivered. We're hiring a calligrapher to address our inner and outer envelopes, so if the outer envelope gets messed up, oh well. I just can't bring myself to worry over it. It's an envelope. The enclosure envelope will still look pretty.

And by "vintage postage" I think she just means vintage stamps. Really cool idea!