I’ve Now Officially Spent Way Too Much Time Thinking About Postage
April 25th, 2008 @ 12:30 pm by Mrs. Tiramisu
I went to the post office yesterday to get one of my finished invitations weighed. I was happy to find out that it was well under 2 ounces weighing in at a featherlight 1.20 ounces. The friendly postal employee even tested its thickness and I am happy to report that it fit easily through the test slot, saving me from the lumpy-bumpy surcharge (I’m pretty sure that’s the technical USPS term).
With the rate change going into effect on May 12, our invites are going to cost 59 cents each to mail. We’ve already purchased the Forever stamps at 41 cents each for the RSVP envelope. Now comes the time to decided just how neurotic I want to be about the stamps on the front of the invite. Help me out hive!Choice A: Custom made stamps with our mugs on them.
The best price I found was at zazzle.com, where they’re offering the 59 cent rate change stamps at the same price as the old 58 cent ones for a limited time. (Wooohooo! I’ll save $1.40, uh, total.)
Total cost for 140 stamps shipped: $135.64 (or 97 cents each)
(I’d probably use one of our engagement pics, but I haven’t gotten the CD yet.)
Choice B: Smokey Mountains 75 cent stamps
Wasted postage but they’re pretty.
Total cost for 140 stamps: $105.00
Choice C: Okefenokee Swamp 69 cent stamps
Pretty swamps? Still wasting some coin.
Total cost for 140 stamps: $96.60
Choice D: Bighorn and Forever 2 stamp combo
What does this say to our guests? Sheep forever? Forever sheep?
Total cost for 140 stamps (before May 12): $81.20
Choice E: As of yet unreleased 59 cent James A. Michener stamp
Sorry Mr. Michener, I don’t think you’re as cute as Mr. Tiramisu (might be cuter than a sheep though).
Total cost for 140 stamps (to be released May 2008): $82.60
On an un-invitation-related note, looks like the USPS has taken a cue from weddingbee, as their latest additions are these adorable tropical fruits:
So what should it be? Frugal option D? Most fun option A? Something in between?
Help me choose!
Images from www.usps.com and www.medaloffreedom.com.
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29 Responses to “I’ve Now Officially Spent Way Too Much Time Thinking About Postage”
I’m also going with the frugal option for the reasons mentioned above. It’s so easy to get caught up in “Eee! Pretty!” I think, like, 1 person said something to me about my stamp selection.
I’ll be the dissenting voice of bridal insanity. 
Mostly because I use the smokey mountain stamps. We did square invites, so we needed 63 cent stamps. No where would I find 63 cent stamps that were A) pretty or B) avaliable in 100 stamps without having to go to 600 different post offices. So, we went with the Smokey Mountains. By the time I got to my 6th post office, looking for 63 cent stamps, I just didn’t care. They ended up looking beautiful though on our silver envelopes and were reminiscent of the mountains (we’re in CO) I say get what you want… it’s only like $20… whatever.
im gonna have to agree with msjadey.. its one of those little details that are most often overlooked. i mean, im planning my own wedding and when i recieve a wedding invitiation in the mail i never notice the stamp. (although sometimes i wish i would have looked at it just to see if that bride was all caught up in the details!) put the extra money into other areas of the wedding that people are going to actually notice!
unless you just happen to have extra money lying around, i would get the cheap ones.
I say go with a custom stamp!
I think the Okefenokee are beautiful, and closer to the right amount. Definitely don’t spend the extra on personalised- it’s a lot of money.
I honestly don’t think that any wedding guests have an opinion on what stamp their invitation comes with.
I don’t even think most people will notice it (they’ll be too excited to rip the envelope open!) … unless it’s something obvious like your picture. But then I’d be too concerned that my guests would think I’d become detail obsessed and was wasting money.
Please, please, go with the cheapest option. Or at least the cheapest ‘non-ugly’ option. Postage is such a pain-in-the-butt expense anyway, no need to spend more money than you need to.
I’m sure you wont care about your stamps once the invitations have gone out
@Dana: If you order from USPS online, it’s only $1 shipping for any amount of stamps, regardless of total. And you never have to worry about anything going out of stock!
Miss Tiramisu: We’re at the same point in the invitation process and even though I’m detail-oriented obsessed and was lucky enough to find cool stamps for my save-the-dates… my invitations have been a huge hurdle. They are coming in around $1.30 domestic, which really limits my stamp options and as much as I love the custom route, I can’t justify an additional 50 cents on each invitation just for it to look prettier. 
So we’re going to use regular ol’ post office stamps.
You’re invitations are so fabulous they’re going to trump any impact the stamp would make anyway.
Okay, so here is my $0.02 opinion.
For my own envelopes, I had big heavy squares, so I needed 97 cents worth of postage. I wound up finding on ebay the vintage love stamps for CHEAPER than their face value (score!) so I used one of the ugly 46 cent love stamps and 2 of the vintage love stamps (from the year I was born and he was born but I didn’t realize that until after I ordered them — score again). I didn’t really care that much, but i was sold with the ability to stamps for cheaper than their value (someone must have been selling their grandmother’s stamp collection).
In the past week, I have received two wedding invitations in the mail. You would think, getting married in a month and having recently dealt with my own invites, I would pay attention to detail. I can tell you everything about the invitations themselves. If I close my eyes, I can picture the gorgeous calligraphy on the envelopes. But you know what? I cannot, for the life of me, remember what stamps they use.
Case in point — it doesn’t really matter what stamps you use. Save yourself the extra money.
I just 10 minutes ago finished my zazzle order. It was worth it to me to pay a little extra to not have the stamps involve the forever bell…
zazzle!
I really love reading all of your posts on here…one of my fav.s
I voted for the bighorn + forever for 2 reasons:
1. cost efficiency as noted by others above
2. the ram is like Ramses, the UNC mascot, which basically makes it the best choice ever
We used stamps.com custom stamps (they offered the .42 stamps before Zazzle so we were able to buy all stamps in one order for STDs, invites and thank-yous). I thought it was perhaps a bit too crazy to use custom stamps, but I am NOT a wedding hearts kind of girl and the other options weren’t inspiring at all.
That said, once our STDs went out, we received so many comments on the cool photo stamps. Friends, family - even the best man called to comment (not a guy who usually notices things like postage). It is extra postage, so if your budget it tight, you may want to opt for something else, but the visual impact of custom stamps is more striking than you’d think.
Good luck!
Isn’t amazing that something like stamps can require so much attention(!!!). I suffered from the same issue until the decision was made for me when I found out my invitations would be $.97 each because we addressed them long way (portrait instead of landscape is how the envelopes were). I almost had a panic attack. OK I sort of did have a panic attack. The combo of stamps to come to this amount and not go over were slim. I ended up going with a single $1 stamp. Did I mention that I sent out about 175 invitations? Yeah, it sucked. Sorry, this doesn’t help you much does it. My vote, go frugal. I’m bitter over the $175 in stamps I spent. No one noticed it anyway.
Zazzle, except what about doing something other than a photo of yourselves? Like a photo from your venue, or of Annapolis? Or your parents wedding photos (I think someone here did that). I think that’s a little more creative and less “hey, look at me!” But that’s just my opinion.
As for USPS options, I’m sure they would be fine and no one would think a thing about it. But I did splurge on zazzle (photo of our destination wedding location) because our only option at USPS was the pink hearts. I just couldn’t do it.
there is also going to be a beautiful 62 cent dragonfly in teals and blues coming out. I went in to the post office and she showed me the catalouge! The new wedding hearts are a soft green .42 and a cream .59 - just so you know!
my friend’s made a custom stamp with a “painting” of them on it. It looked like a photoshop filter to make a posed portrait look more artistic–the image wasn’t too bad. The stamps were from the zazzle, because it says so right there on the stamp.
The stamps seemed HUGE first off and totally overbearing on the envelope (which was already oversized)
I can’t tell you what the invitation really looked like, but I can tell you the person they hired to do the calligraphy had a shaky hand and the stamp was huge, ugly and incredibly tacky.
People really do notice the stamps; they just don’t say anything to you about it–especially if they were bad!
@susie: i think the only reason why they were that noticeable was bc they were that large.
i have never noted or paid attention to any stamp that i have gotten in the mail. i will probably go with the Liberty bell, which suits me fine bc it actually fits into our color scheme.
A co-worker got a wedding invite recently. I took a look. She had already put the envelope in the recyclying box next to her desk. I said “oh cool custom stamps” (they were B&W photo of couple) and she said “oh my god i did not even notice that”.
So I say go with the most cost effective. Some people don’t even notice this stuff we make ourselves insane over but if you want your photo then go for it.
Yeah, honestly, I don’t think postage matters to 99% of guests (except brides-to-be or recent brides!) and the envelope just gets thrown out usually. So, I would advise against wasting money, and just doing what gets the job done and the invitation out!
I have been in 9 weddings. I have been invited to at least 15. I do not remember what the stamp on the envelope was. Why do we do this to ourselves?!! Personally, I think it’s a waste of money to personalize or waste money on stamps. I think the saved money will be effectively (dare I say quickly) be spent elsewhere.
Interesting…
The commenters are for the cheapest option, the poll all for custom, and Manda just gave me another stamp idea that sounds beautiful- anyone have a pictures of the dragonfly?
Thanks to all for the input!
we just bought our stamps today… i wish we would have known that by using the 6.5×6.5 gorgeous gold envelopes we planned our invites around would cost us $1 (.97) in postage each! and that’s without the rsvp stamps (we ended up with a butterfly & a teapot.) we knew it would be more for squares, but once you have your invites all designed & ready you cant not buy the $$$ stamps. also, luckily we had a super sweet teller, who brought us out a few options once she saw our rsvp postcards in gold, to try to match them for us! (the new fruits arent being sold yet & we dont have time to wait for them to be mailed). we ended up spending a few pennies more per rsvp to get some pretty stamps that matched (american toleware teapot $.05 & a common buckeye butterfly $.24).
I’d go for custom — but probably not a photo of us, just a picture of the Maine coast or something else related to our location. I’m all for saving money by being sensible, but I do try to balance everything out one thing against another. It doesn’t make sense — to me personally — at least — to save $40 on stamps that I consider hideous IF it’s going to bother me later (which it will, sadly, b/c I am OCD about stationery and fonts and everything related) given what we’re spending on my dress and his suit. . . . Yeeps.
(Sorry, didn’t mean to imply we’re getting married on the Maine coast! That was a Miss Tiramisu reference . . . not said very well. :))
how about superhero stamps?
[...] all the stamp debate, we ended up going with the simple and pretty dragonfly stamp. Thank you so much to reader Manda [...]
It is amazing how the idea of customizing stamps can turn into its own industry.
I think it’s nice for those that fit it into their budget to make their wedding invitations just the way they want them. Some people may not notice, but others will save them as keepsakes.
Mrs. Tiramisu, Annapolis, MD/Maine
Age and Occupation: 26, Eye Doctor
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 26, Project Manager/Real Estate Management grad student
Engagement Date: May 15, 2007
Wedding Date: July, 2008
Blogging Since: March 4, 2008
Venue: Oceanfront lawn and tent
About Me: I was born and raised in Maine, now living in Annapolis, Maryland and planning a hometown wedding from afar. I’m nothing short of obsessed with wedding planning, and am loving the do-it-yourself madness that has now taken over my life! As for me, I’m a craft-loving, martini-drinking, girly-girl who loves traveling, photography, my schnauzer, and above all, spending time with Mr. Tiramisu.
I know some of the hives might think I’m crazy, but I’m going to go with the most cost efficient stamp. Why??
With wedding budgets skyrocketing, this is one area where attention to detail for a stamp does not count because quite frankly, the envelopes are going to take a beating by the time it arrives to the recipient. I have never received an invitation where my first reaction was “wow! That’s a nice stamp there.”
The reason the post office does not have nice forever stamps is probably due to the fact that it will not make as much money to have people shell out extra cash for stamps that they do like.
The wedding industry is SOOO rich as it is that we don’t need to buy into every little deail. Spend your money where it counts! Reception, honeymoon…at latte at Starbucks! =)
Sorry for the long post, but it just gets me upset that everyone is just out to make a buck especially when it has “wedding” in the front of the label…