It's Official!

The invitations have been mailed!

After two long weeks of printing and assembling, calling for addresses, and addressing each envelope by hand I turned them over to the care of the Post Office. We even got our first RSVP returned yesterday (an 'accept with pleasure!'. No mind it was from my Matron of Honor. . . ahem. . .it was still exciting!)

Less than a week previously, we had the Post Office weigh one of our invitations so we could find out what to expect postage-wise. We were quoted $1.00 each (ouch!) which was to be expected because we made the mistake of using square envelopes (odd size = extra postage) out of heavy card stock (extra weight = extra postage). What we found particularly strange, however, was that in a return trip to the post office to buy the stamps we were quoted $1.17 each.

This was before the postage rate increase. The same invitation, weighed by two different employees, and a $.17 difference? It really makes me wonder how 'accurate' their scales are, or if there was a gap in one or the other employees training.

I politely mentioned this to the employee who quoted us the $1.17 (who was also the manager!) and he looked at me like we had made the story up and were trying to scam the Post Office out of $.17!

It wasn't worth the argument, although I'm glad I had it re-weighed (otherwise all of our invites may have hit mailboxes around the country with 'postage due'. Talk about a major etiquette blunder!). I also brought up the argument about one of our invites hitting another scale in their system; how do we know it won't come up with yet another (potentially higher) rate? The manager didn't appreciate my comment!

I also asked him that, since their wedding stamps don't add up to $1.17 and I'd be paying $1.22 for each invitation (two wedding cake stamps at $.61 each) if they would mind hand canceling each envelope (instead of getting the machined red bar on it they use a rubber stamp. . .it looks much nicer) and he very curtly told me he'd do it if he 'had' to and only if they weren't busy. He also said that the machine stamp isn't going to 'ruin' my invitations and didn't understand why I was worried about it.

Good grief. Anybody that knows me knows that I'm the farthest thing from a Bridezilla. I don't know if this guy had some bride in there making a fuss once and now he hates all of us, but I definitely think he needed an attitude check.

I wanted the hand cancel because we spent a lot of money on these invitations, and it's proper etiquette to have them hand-canceled (just like they are hand addressed).

But I digress. The invitations are out, and things are moving along! Two months from today we'll all be together at our venue, and I'm still in disbelief that we're already this close.

Details details. . . .