USPS Hand Canceling Wedding Invitations

I get about 30 wedding invites a year, and I'd be hard pressed to tell you if any of them were machine cancelled or hand cancelled.....

As far as I know, rigid envelopes need to be hand cancelled but, yes, it does cost extra.

I was told by my post office the same thing but they said if I added extra postage and since there was a gem on our invites they wouldn't be ran through a machine.

And they weren't

OKD - I swear a bride just posted within the last couple of weeks about having theirs hand cancelled..Weird..

I think it may be location dependent. I think I am going to call around.

Mine were hand cancelled and they didn't charge extra. They were hesitant about it because they said it didn't need it but they still did it.

We have a post office in Oregon that hand cancels with cute cancellations (the post office is in Bridal Veil, Oregon).

Article below on how to have them hand stamp your invites since you can't exactly drive there

http://afterglobe.net/how-to-send-your-wedding-invitations-from-bridal-veil-oregon/

Depends on the location and probably the mood of the postal worker to be honest. I had my dad go out on a weekday so it wasn't too busy and ask about it for me. First post office said no, second one only a few miles away said "oh absolutely!" and was super friendly. Keep trying...though you really might have more luck if you can go during the week at a non-busy time of day.

I used the Bridal Veil post office mentioned above. Not a lot of extra cost (5 cents per envelope over 50 envelopes, plus the cost of mailing the box of envelopes there). And you get both hand canceling and a special wedding postmark.

I was told at a post office here in NYC that its up to the manager of the particular office on if they want to hand cancel or not

So I just googled this... I had no idea what hand canceling vs machine canceling was (I had an idea but I wanted to confirm).

Anyway.. what I read makes it same like hand-stamping is still a thing - that it just depends on the post office and specific post office worker. Some charge extra and some do not. You can always request to do it yourself.. and you would just hand-stamp them in a nearby counter.

I think I would keep asking, if I were you. Also, thank you for post this. My goal was to go and get them weighted today to determine the cost (I have different "sets" going out, so prices might differ - especially since I have some international ones) - and I ran out of time to do it. I was just going to ask them to weight one, buy the rest of the stamps and put them in my regular mailbox. Now, I know that hand-stamping is still a thing! So thank you! (Now I won't have to worry as much of a machine ruining them).

Thanks Courtney for the link. I was telling FH about it and all he said was "uh huh", but in his defense he's carving a foam pumpkin with a pattern from Zombie Pumpkins. We will definitely be doing this.

I agree with the others who said it....it seems to depend on the location. About a month ago I asked my post office and they said sure, just don't come around lunch time...

I live in a small town in Georgia but our post office hand canceled our invitations recently. The postage charge was .71 cents each to do it though. I don't see how everything could run through the machine. They said mine couldn't bc there was a bow that kept the envelopes from laying flat. I did go early in the morning on a weekday hoping they wouldn't be busy but the lady helping me said it didn't really matter that if they were busy they would set them aside until they had a minute to do it. Try calling different post offices in your area. Hope this helps!

I had mine hand cancelled at a post office in NYC for 5 cent a piece. I then went back to have more done at the lady told me it would be 1.35 per envelope for a quantity under 50. Um....nope.

Haha I had never heard of this! Thus I didn't do it with my invites. But it seems like everyone got their invitation just fine. It definitely wasn't a priority to me, but then again flowers were a priority and some people skip flowers...everyone is different. Anyway, if it's super important to you, it sounds like it still happens from what I read, a blog suggested that you go at a non-busy time at the post office and call the post office first to see if they offer it.

We're actually planning on flying up to Portland to go to the Bridal Veil post office to mail ours out, too! We're in the Bay Area, so it's not actually that outrageous. Plus, we can then hike to the falls and get some photos.

Ours were shipped last week and the lady reassured me they would not be ran through the machine. I did pay for the 93 cent postage because our invites were about 3 oz. So yes they do it, but it costs more.

I did mine at a smaller post office, like one in a smaller city. No extra charge or anything and she did them right there in front of me. Just depends.