A Cautionary Tale of Stamps

Image via Business News Daily

With our business cards tucked safely away inside the envelopes, I drove to the post office. I was on the hunt for the new Garden of Love Stamps. I was in luck! My post office had just gotten them in that week. So I did what any bride would do and bought five booklets.

So cute!

Image via The Postal Store

I took a sealed envelope to get it weighed so I would have the exact postage. Since our STDs are magnets, they were a little heavier and I knew the postage was bound to be more than  expected. The nice woman at the counter complimented me on the envelopes and told me they would cost 64 cents. They didn't have any nice 20 cent stamps so I went home and checked online. I decided on the Herb stamps. Even though I only needed 20 cent stamps, I got these 29 cent stamps 'cause they're so puurty. 

Image via The Postal Store

44 cent stamps + 29 cent stamps = 73 cents worth of postage. More than enough right? Wrong. It turns out, I still didn't have enough postage. After my Herb stamps arrived, I quickly stuck all of them onto the envelopes and Mr. Warbler and I headed to the post office on my lunch break. Yes, lunch break. I was that desperate to get them out into the world! Before I tell you what happened, let me show you these beauties.

Outside envelopes

MOH J5 printed a modified version of our Penguins on the envelopes. Thanks again, J5!

I love the red flower and two doves stamps!

When I went back to the post office, I nervously asked the man behind the counter if they hand cancelled envelopes. I had read on other blogs that some post offices did NOT hand cancel and that it was really hit or miss sometimes. After he said "Yes." I breathed a huge sigh of relief and happily handed them off to him. But after he weighed one envelope he told me that it would cost 84 cents to mail them and that I needed 11 more cents. "No," I said. "I came last week and had them weighed. I was told it would cost 64 cents. Weigh it again, I have enough postage." The man shook his head and said "If you want them hand cancelled you need 11 more cents. Hand cancelling services are extra."

Ugh. I looked at Mr. Warbs for help and he just shrugged and said, "OK, give us 10 cent and 1 cent stamps." But I was mortified. How could I have forgotten to ask about hand cancelling last week? I had heard that there was no charge for hand cancelling, but I should have verified. Idiot! At this point I just wanted to preserve the stamp harmony. Adding extra un-matching stamps next to my beautiful ones made me want to cry. I asked the man behind the counter if we could just forgo the hand cancelling and mail them as is. But that was a no go. Since I was mailing magnets they couldn't run them through the machines anyway. The had to be hand cancelled. Big sigh. I could have run home and added an extra Herb stamp to the envelopes, but it seemed like more trouble than it was worth. I reluctantly added the extra 10 and 1 cent stamps and destroyed my masterpiece. The end result looked like this.

Not what I envisioned at ALL.

To add salt to my wounds, the man took out a big rubber stamp and stamped "DO NOT BEND" in huge red letters on the bottom right hand corner. At this point I had to get out of there. Mr. Warbs tried to cheer me up by saying no one was going to care about the envelope anyway. Even though I know he's right I still feel moody about the whole thing. I don't have any complaints about the way my STDs came out which is all that matters. If anything, I'm glad I went through all of this with the STDs and NOT the invites.

So a word of advice to fellow brides: don't forget to ask questions! If you're going to hand cancel your invites or STDs, let the postal worker know when they're weighing your envelope. Trust me, it's best to stray on the safe side. Is anyone else going to hand cancel?