This post will be sort of a mish-mash of a couple of things I discovered while experimenting with and mailing our invitations. First, I present you with a photo of Future In Law Puff’s invitation, which is evidence as to why you may want to go to the trouble of hand canceling if you made custom stamps (and no, I don’t have any suggestions on hand cancelling–I didn’t end up doing it because it seemed like too much work):
I am more and more thankful that I stopped caring about the stamps.
Secondly, we have the RSVP postcards. I sent my mom our Save the Date postcard, just so she could see what it looked like, and to make sure it got there okay. When I saw it after she’d received it, I was horrified. It was totally scraped up! Unfortunately, I’d already printed my RSVP postcards. I decided to send a couple to her and to myself, just to see how they ended up. They arrived in much better condition, but still pretty scraped up from the machines:
I still decided to send them, though, for several reasons:
1) Well, I already made them.
2) When our guests see them, they will be perfect. I’m the only one who sees them messed up.
3) The part that is messed up doesn’t affect any of the information I need to gather (meal choices, names, etc).
4) I plan to keep the cards and put them in the back of our guestbook. The notes are the parts I wanted to save, and that part isn’t messed up.
One thing to note is that I got the RSVP postcards done through Prints Made Easy. Our Save the Dates, on the other hand, were printed through Vista Print. I’m sorry to say that they didn’t fare as well as the Prints Made Easy postcards, because the finish is different. The front was badly mangled…so long story short, avoid sending Vista Print poscards if you want them to look perfect.
Overall, my opinion is this: RSVP postcards are okay. If you’re sending out 100 invitiations, it will only be $15 more to send them in envelopes, so if you’re thinking about using postcards just to save on postage, it’s really not that much of a difference. A good reason to send postcards, however, is because you like the way that they look, or they fit into your invitation design better. Postcard Save the Dates, on the other hand, are not a good idea (in my opinion). As cute as the idea is, I just don’t think it works well in practice–people might not notice them, whereas everyone feels special to get a fun envelope in the mail.
interesting. my save the date postcards went throught the mail really well, but rsvp postcards have not fared as well. i didn’t use the same paper for them so i’m sure that is a big part of it.
just so others know and maybe this is just some on my and FI’s nutty family, but people who wanted to send us a gift or write a note with their cannot attend put the postcard in an envelope so if you are trying to go green, it may escape some people.
Your postcards are so cute 
Our RSVP postcards were also surprisingly scraped up by the time they made it back to us (although perfectly readable, and I don’t think we’ve lost any).
I originally used 200 lb paper for our postcards and 80 lb when we needed extras. Although the 200 lb was (very) difficult to print and cut, I thought it would be better capable of handling abuse in the mail system. But in the end, the 80 lb seemed to have faired better. So it wasn’t worth all that hassle!
Don’t forget another reason for using postcards: save on paper, save a tree (and processing pollution, recycling resources…)
I have seen some of our save the date postcards at friends’ and families’ houses, and they all looked fine… not even any bent corners. Everyone seems to have liked them. I’ll be sending invites out in a couple weeks, so I’m eager to see how the response postcards look as I receive them back.
All of my save the dates and invites were ordered through a print shop in TX. I ordered custom thank you cards through Vista Print, and I was not happy with them. The print was much darker than the design I sent, and I didn’t like that they included their logo on the back of my thank you notes.
I gave up on the whole stamp thing pretty much in the beginning - too much worry.
But had to give a shout out for the “I can has cheezburger” love that site.
loves the lolcat reference–my FI and I have taken to speaking in lols a bit too much recently…
this may be a stupid Q, but: Are those pics of the front and of the back of the RSVP postcards?
Something I learned when sending mine is that the side WITHOUT the address is the one that gets banged up — so if you can swing a one-sided postcard with the info on the same side as the address, they’ll probably come through OK. That’s probably a lot to ask for Save the Date postcards, but we managed it for RSVP postcards.
Your post helped me get over my idea that I had to hand cancel the invitations to make them all purdy. They’re going to be beat up by the time they get to the recipients (hence the inner envelope!) anyway, so why spend all that extra time doing something that maybe a handful of people will even notice?
I just got back from the post office to mail my wedding invitations. My calligrapher did a beautiful job so I opted to hand cancel the envelopes. After hand stamping about 50 (1/2 of the invitations) with the ugly red stamp, I realized that the part of the stamp that hit the envelope part dried immediately, but the red ink stayed wet on the stamp and had no intention of drying in the next hour or so! So, I had to blot each of the 50 invitations with tissue. I then threw the other 50 in the mail to get canceled in the machine.
But don’t forget the cost of the tony envelope! And the contribution to the overall weight. Still probably negligible, but every little bit counts I suppose.
miss CP, quick question — i dont know if i missed this along the way or not, but did you design your RSVP cards yourself or did you get them from somewhere? I am graduating next year and think they would be a cute save the date card since i’m from CA and go to school in NY
I hand canceled mine (the machine cancellation mark just doesn’t look right with vintage stamps). At first the tattoo’d dude at the PO was not having any of my hand-cancelation-desiring business. But when I whined (sweetly) that the machine cancellation was ugly, he handed that puppy right over!
I was super afraid of my envelopes getting all tore up in the mail. I’ve seen a few of the since delivered envelopes, and am happy to report that the outsides (with their gorgeous calligraphy done by my FBIL’s GF) are pretty much in perfect shape. A little bit of scuffing. But nothing that ruins them (and I’m picky).
The other thing to mention about postcards is that often A) get lost in the mail, and B) take forever to be delivered. I’ve heard many a horror story about postcard RSVPs that didn’t arrive until it was way too late, despite timely mailing. Or of them just never showing up at all (despite having been sent). The post office eats post cards for breakfast, I’m convinced.
I actually had the same RSVP as you! Just FYI, you may get a couple of issues with RSVPs. I thought this design would be full proof with the formal address and everything but I actually had 3 guests that decided to tack on up to 3 additional guests EACH because there were so many lines. I was kicking myself a little that I didn’t add an additional line with # people invited. Hope you don’t have the same issue.
D’oh! Wishing I’d hand cancelled since there might have been a big ink stamp over our faces. Oh wells.
Yeah, our RSVP postcards arrived pretty shredded but I didn’t care too much since no one would see them in that state but us.
You have the prettiest RSVP cards I’ve ever seen.
@brendalynn–yep, those are the fronts and backs.
@redsoxgal–I’m with you!
@AKPM2008–OMG! That’s so sad that the stamp smeared!!
@Pinky–yep, I designed them myself. I can PM you.
@Dani–this is what I’m afraid of when it comes to postcards. ARGH. I hope we get all of them!!
@Jen–I actually did put a little line with the number of people invited. So far so good!! We’ll see. :-/
@katya–considering how many people commented on your fabulous stamps, I highly doubt there was a problem!! And thanks!!!
Mrs. Cream Puff, San Francisco Bay Area
Age and Occupation: 25, Illustrator
Fiance's Age and Occupation: 31, Merchandise Planner
Engagement Date: May 27, 2007
Wedding Date: August, 2008
Blogging Since: February 7, 2008
Venue: Ceremony at Crissy Field and Reception at the Green Room
About Me: I never dreamed about my wedding as a little girl because I was too busy playing in the mud or pretending to be Martha Stewart–but now that it's here, I'm having a fabulous time DIYing everything in sight! We’re planning a very fun multicultural wedding (I'm Jewish and Mr. Cream Puff is Chinese), filled with as many personal details as I can muster.
I had the same disappointment when I saw our RSVP postcards that had been sent to my parents’ house. They were all banged up! They no longer looked perfect! I was horrified! But then my mom reminded me that when people saw them, they were perfect, and we were the only ones who saw the banged up replies. Oh well.
I think your invites look great!