Darn you Martha Stewart and your impeccable use of vintage stamps! (Sorry, Martha!) Ok, first off let me say that I love vintage stamps, and I love the look of them on wedding invitations; however, I am trying to prioritize our wedding splurges. Already our splurges have been on location, food, my dress, and hiring a string trio for the ceremony (which I haven’t posted about yet). But, I am always in the mood for hunting for a good deal! So, I did a little vintage stamp investigation to see if I could possibly add one more splurge item. 
I found that Ebay is a fabulous resource for vintage stamps. SeaJay Stamp and Coin, a seller on ebay, has some great prices on stamp sheets (Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with Ebay or SeaJay Stamp and Coin. I am just a Cookie trying to make other bees DIY projects easier), or look at different sellers by going to Ebay> Categories >Stamps > US > Sheets. Even though most of the stamps are sold at face value, they cost an additional $2-5 per sheet in shipping. If I bought the vintage stamps, that would add additional costs that my already bulging budget can’t afford. So I decided to go for the stamps sold at the post office.
I don’t know about you, but I loathe standing in line at the post office. Mainly, because I feel like I am always at the Post Office mailing a grant or thank you letters to donors because of my job. so the Postal Store for the United States Postal Service is a great online resource for current stamps. What I love about it is that you can order stamps online, and they will ship them to you for $1 no matter how many stamps you order, and no waiting in line at the post office! They arrive really quickly, and I think it’s the best $1 I’ve spent on the wedding so far!
Between the time we sent our save-the-dates and will send our invitations, postage went up 1¢! (Darn, you oil companies and your high priced gas!) So, I decided to go with the “Celebrate” stamp for the save-the-date. I think it is fun, cute and went along with the envelope.
To adjust for the rate change, I decided to wait until the new 42¢ stamps had been issued. Also, because I am designing our own invites, I needed to wait on buying postage until I had finalized the paper and weighed an invite — to see how much the postage would be. Last week, I stopped by the Post Office on the way home to weigh them using their scales, and I was shocked and surprised to find that my invites would only be 42¢! I’m keeping them very simple and the paper stock is pretty light, which I think really helped to keep the weight down!
These puppies arrived in my mailbox on Wednesday. Does the top one look familiar? Mrs. Lemon just recently did a post about them. I am using the tropical fruits stamps for postage on our postcard RSVP, again to save money. I think the stamps are fun, colorful and will go great with the Tiffany blue paper I am using. Even though I am not using vintage stamps, I think these stamps will look great! After all it’s just a stamp, right?
Here are a few blog posts that were inspirations to me: WeddingBee: Ms. Tulip and My Martha Moment, Hasel Bridge: My vintage, color coordinating stamps, Oh Happy Day: Vintage Stamps, WeddingBee: Ms. Gummi Bear and My Invitation Melt..er..Breakdown, WeddingBee: Ms. Lovebug and This Just In: More Stuff.
i also did postcard RSVP’s and got the fruit stamps, my sister loved the stamp so much she said she wanted to keep the postcard since I knew she was already coming.
Great move and a great place to save $. I thrive on being a dork, so I ordered custom stamps for our STDs, but we will see when it comes to invites. Before planning my own wedding, I never noticed stamps.
the fruit stamps are adorable. i got an invite with them on the RSVP. they even have a little metallic sparkle to them!
i’ve personally bookmarked a few different vintage stamps that i would love to use. my wedding is in late 09 so i can’t justify purchasing stamps for invitations i won’t even have til next year -_-. i hope the USPS continues to roll out cute stamps though, i would be swayed over to their side if they do!
I used vintage stamps for my invite. I found ones that spoke to who we are, love of politics, law, photography, etc. I even found a stamp with the Jefferson monument and Cherry Blossoms, where we visit every year. I ordered off of ebay and tried to bid as close to face value as possible.
The mom’s threw a fit when they saw the outcome, so the compromise was to use the stamps on our friends invites, and use current stamps on the parents’ guests. Sigh….. I used all the leftover stamps on my thank you notes, so in the end everyone got to see them.
I too got vintage stamps off of Ebay. I found 55 cent LOVE cherub stamps that went perfectly with the colors of my envelopes. I had less than 50 invites to mail, so it was easy finding booklets of the same stamp. I paid nearly the face value, but with shipping costs they were a bit pricey - I wouldn’t have done that if I had a bigger wedding.
Another thing to remember is that all stamps used have to be cancelled. If you do the MS thing where you have the whole row or the pyramid of stamps, even if you have your invites hand-cancelled, you will end up with three or more cancellation stamps on your envelope - three if you get a really nice
USPS employee, who just thinks that a portion of the cancellation stamp has to cover each of your stamps - more if you get one who believes that they need to stamps once for each stamp on the envelope. That’s a lot of ink, and you’ll find that what looks lovely in Martha’s (uncancelled) photo actually looks like quite a mess by the time it’s delivered.
@ErinMarieMack: I too never noticed stamps before planning our wedding. @Suzanno: That is a really great point to remember when using vintage stamps! Thank you!
@vintageglam: I saw your wedding bio and loved, LOVED your invites! The stamps fit perfectly.
Mrs. Cookie, Denver
Age and Occupation: 25, Nonprofit Fundraiser/Theatre Designer
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 27, Financial Analyst
Engagement Date: September 2007
Wedding Date: September 2008
Blogging Since: May 8, 2008
Venue: Ten Mile Station
About Me: With a degree in Theatre I never realized that planning a wedding was a lot like Theatre Management, until I started planning my own. I am a coffee addict, especially Starbucks' Grande Mochas, yummy! I love to cook (especially chocolate chip cookies for my honey), travel to exotic places, and be creative. As a couple, Mr. Cookie and I are extremely practical, down to earth, and children at heart. We live in a cozy abode with our adorable Pomeranian, and love to play board games and watch movies into the evening.
I smell a wiki in the making with this post - tons of info! And those fruit stamps seem perfect for all the new fruit bees.