Why does mailing wedding invitations feel so stressful, and how can couples avoid common mistakes?

In this episode of Now That I’m Engaged, How Do I Get Married?, Kevin and August sit down with Jaime Coast, watercolor artist and stationery designer behind Cotton & Bow, to demystify the wedding invitation mailing process.

Jaime explains why couples often feel overwhelmed by invitation timelines, postage, and delivery concerns, and why the traditional six-to-eight-week rule no longer applies. She shares updated guidance on when to send invitations, especially for destination weddings, and highlights common mistakes that can lead to delays or added costs—like wax seals on outer envelopes, underestimated weight, and counterfeit stamps.

Jaime has been designing stationery since 2017 for couples looking to illustrate their love stories. She lives in Westchester, NY, with her husband and two girls. Cotton & Bow ships worldwide, with couples having a local or destination wedding.

Highlights

1. Why mailing invitations feels intimidating and how to simplify it
2. The updated timeline for sending wedding invitations
3. Common mailing mistakes that can cause delays or added costs
4. How invitation weight, size, and embellishments affect postage
5. Best practices for addressing envelopes and avoiding delivery issues
6. When tracking invitations makes sense
7. Tips for mailing international invitations safely
8. How to spot and avoid counterfeit stamps

Connect with Jaime:

Jaime’s Mailing Guide

Website

Instagram

Facebook

Pinterest

TikTok

LinkedIn

Vintage Stamp Dealers:

Enfield Post

Champion Stamp

Little Postage House

Connect with Kevin & August:

Website

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LinkedIn

All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Now That I'm Engaged, How Do I Get Married? And we're here with Jaime Coast today, stationery designer. And she's going to be talking about insider tips for mailing your invitations with confidence. And I'm really excited to get into this because I feel like that's such a stress for folks to mail their stuff out. So Jaime, tell us a little about yourself and how we got you here today.

Absolutely. So Kevin and August, thank you so much. ⁓ I'm so thrilled to be here and talking to everyone ⁓ engaged and planning their weddings. ⁓ So Cotton and Bow is the name of my stationary company. We are based in Westchester, New York. ⁓ And we specialize in watercolor wedding invitations, ⁓ as well as ⁓ save the dates and any other paper goods that you would need for your weddings and events. We like to say that we illustrate love stories.

Okay.

⁓

That's really our focus is taking those ⁓ different love stories and personalities and capturing different destinations ⁓ and figuring out how to tell those love stories ⁓ in interesting ways for all of your guests.

I love it. And now I'm going to have to dive in and check out all your stuff because I love watercolor stuff. It's really awesome. So all right. So mailing wedding invitations feels stressful for a lot of couples. Why is this step so intimidating?

Yeah.

Yes, so think there's a couple of components. One is just the timing of it. People are always confused. There's a lot of conflicting advice ⁓ on the internet and from etiquette guidebooks. And then the second step of it is just the black box of the post office. Once you kind of drop things off, you don't know where things are. ⁓ And so there is a little bit of that mystery of do the invites actually make it to their destination and how much is postage going to cost. So we can kind of.

Hehehe.

talk about all three of those things. If we want to start with timing, think, know, ⁓ especially, you know, right now, everybody's getting ready to send out their invites over the next couple of months. ⁓ It used to be that six to eight weeks was sort of your traditional guidance of, you know, six to eight weeks before the wedding, you should send out your invites. And now, ⁓ you know, especially post COVID, we're getting earlier and earlier.

Mm-hmm.

Mm.

So

Mmm.

I know me and a lot of the other stationery designers as an industry, we are now recommending that you send out your invitations, you know, two to three months in advance. For sure, three months has kind of become the new standard, you know, that 10 to 12 weeks instead of the six to eight. And that's just to give the post office a little bit more time to deliver those invitations, you know, especially with

Hmm.

recent staffing shortages and budget cuts, things do take a little bit longer to get there. But it's also to give couples a little bit more peace of mind and time ⁓ in order to get RSVPs in, follow up ⁓ on RSVPs that haven't come in yet, and do all of the great day of pieces like menus and place cards and seating charts and really get creative with those pieces if they want to, because couples are so much more into the experience of the day.

Yeah.

Hmm.

now. And so having a longer lead time between getting the RSVPs in and the actual day ⁓ is critical for that. And so what you don't want to do is be stressed two weeks before the wedding, you know, still working on your seating chart. So having a little bit of a longer lead time there really helps. And then for destination weddings, you know, we're even recommending like four to five months in advance to really give people more time for travel.

No.

Yeah, that makes sense because of travel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, that just makes sense

in general. Why do you think it like the standard was always six to eight weeks? Because it kind of just makes more sense. Like you said, the peace of mind and you you spend a lot on invitations and also getting them back and being able to kind of filter through all that information. Like it, I feel like the 10 to 12 weeks kind of makes more sense across the board.

It definitely does nowadays, especially when you think about the overall timeline of, you you're probably planning your wedding 12 to 18 months out. That's, how far in advance venues are booking. ⁓ You know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, that that wasn't the case. There was just a much shorter lead time of planning the wedding overall. And so if you are planning a wedding on like a six month timeline, let's say, or even a three month timeline, ⁓ then you can see how maybe a six to eight week.

Yeah.

⁓ piece was more common back then because it was sort of like you'd get engaged if you're having like a backyard or courthouse or like local venue type wedding and it was much smaller. We're talking about in the 80s and earlier, ⁓ those weddings were being planned like a lot sooner. Like I'm just thinking of my own parents and how they kind of planned their wedding.

Yeah, that's fair. That's fair.

Mm-hmm

Yeah.

⁓ You know, they were sort of just going into a stationery store picking out, you know, from 10 identical looking invitations. I basically just had like, it was white or it was a crew and you know, had a couple of different fonts that they could choose from, you know, Navy or black. Yes, exactly. Different color ribbon. ⁓ And so, you know, in that case, I think the safe six to eight weeks was just from a practical standpoint, like that's when those things were kind of happening.

And some ribbon.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So if we're working off that three month timeline, then when should couples actually start thinking about even starting the process for invitations so they can hit that mark?

Absolutely, and that is something that I think couples are often surprised about is just how long those things can take, especially in our Amazon world where everything ships in two days. ⁓ Same day delivery, exactly. ⁓ Yes, and I think it depends on the type of invitation you're ordering. ⁓ So, you know, I'll start with, ⁓ you know, the fastest you can really get invitations.

Mm-hmm.

And shows up at four at eight o'clock in the morning. That's a new thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Same day, delivery!

Okay.

is about one to two weeks. And that's if you're ordering direct from a site like Minted or Zazzle where everything is sort of already pre-designed, pre-baked, and you're entering your information, entering in your addresses, and everything's just being printed and sent to you right away. Even that takes one to two weeks. And so think people are really surprised by that timeline of they think, okay, I can print off my invites and have them by the end of the week.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that might even just take them two weeks because it would take the printer and the company themselves maybe five business days to actually make the invitations. And then it's gonna take shipping another five days if you're using just like standard economic ground shipping, like whatever the free shipping option that comes with it. So people are often surprised by that. I think then if you're going into like working with more of a stationer or you wanna incorporate artwork,

Mm-hmm.

And you're going into more of a semi-custom realm. You're looking at more of a four to six week timeline. And again, your concept there is already sort of like pre-designed. You're picking out a layout or ⁓ you're picking out things, but you're actually working with a person to customize certain elements of the design. And then if you're going fully bespoke, fully custom, you're really starting from scratch. You don't have a concept. You're

Mm.

Yeah.

working one-on-one with a designer to design something that's totally tailored to your wedding ⁓ and your personalities, that is going to take anywhere from eight to 12 weeks, maybe even longer. You might want to book further in advance if the stationer is really popular and has a limited number of availability spots. Some stationers will book out a year in advance even if they're very popular.

you

Yeah.

wow.

That makes sense. Especially for really custom stuff.

Well...

Yeah, there are some

Yeah.

stationers who are just very limited. They only take on 10 clients a year, kind of deal. And so in those cases, someone who's just a very highly skilled artisan craftsman kind of stationer, might, the type that you would maybe see on Instagram, who's very popular on Instagram, who's getting featured in ⁓ Over the Moon and things like that for their artistry. Those sorts of people are getting booked up.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

you're in advance just simply because they have limited availability.

Yeah, makes sense.

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, and not to get off base with like the mailing ⁓ topic for today, but ⁓ I'm kind of curious, like when a couple books you and because I mean, I don't think we've had maybe I think we maybe had one other stationer on the podcast before, but it's been a minute. But ⁓ I'm assuming there's like a lot of personality involved. Like, do you send them just the prints or do they get the actual watercolor too or?

How does that work as far as the invitations go?

Yes, because so much of my stuff is based on original watercolor, I do actually send the original over as well. ⁓ I think it adds just such a key level of permanence to the entire process. When you are working one-on-one with a stationary designer who is an artist first, what you're really doing is you're commissioning a custom piece of art. So if you were to commission a piece of artwork for your home,

that's nice, yeah.

⁓ cool.

Mm-hmm.

And then you're kind of getting the invitations as a bonus on top of that. So I do send out that original artwork to frame or to tuck inside your wedding album. And that's really nice keepsake after that. And I know a lot of other stationery designers do the same if they are artists themselves. ⁓ Some station designers are not artists. They're more of like a graphic designer ⁓ or like a letterpress printmaker. So it just kind of depends on ⁓

What

type?

what look you're going for and who you're kind of working with.

So Jaime, are there any mistakes that couples make when preparing their invitations to be mailed?

Yeah, so there's a lot of different things that can get you into trouble with the post office. There's also just things that can cause the mailing to be more expensive that people don't realize. And so that's not necessarily like a mistake that's going to get you flagged, but it might be something that just costs you more money than you realize and might have ⁓ implications in terms of your budget. So you know,

⁓

Biggest mistakes I see, the first one is putting a wax seal on the outside of your envelope. Wax seals are still very popular. People really love that look of, you know, the sort of hand-dripped like wax with a seal. If you watched the Taylor Swift documentary, she did that for her bonuses. So I'm sure we'll see a lot more people getting back into that and we'll see a huge resurgence ⁓ of wax seals, but it's been

Yeah.

Yeah, I was just gonna bring that up. I was just gonna bring that up. Yep.

Yes, yes. Yeah.

very popular still, I still do a lot of those. And so, you we usually recommend putting them on an inner envelope or putting them inside of the invitation in some way, either on, you know, a gatefold or to attach to a ribbon or to attach to, you know, a vellum, like wrap or a belly band, like over the invitation, as opposed to putting them on like the outside of the envelope that's getting mailed physically. Like you would have seen kind of in like a Bridgerton era,

Yeah, I was going to say probably back then.

⁓

yeah. And so, ⁓ the reason for that is, I mean, historically, the reason why they put it on the out, the reason why they use wax seals to begin with was because, one, it was almost like a signature, like everyone, every family household had their own stamp. And so they would seal things with wax. And, ⁓ by the time it was delivered to the person, you could then tell if your mail was tampered with, because if the wax seal had been broken, then you knew that somebody had opened your envelope.

Mmm.

Yeah.

⁓

and nobody else had your seal. And so you couldn't really open it and then reseal it because it had your sort of family crest like seal on it. And so we're, you know, we're going back to like 1700s, 1800s, like that's why they started using wax seals to begin with. And letters were hand delivered, right? And so by horseback. So.

Hmm.

Yeah.

I love this though.

Yeah, that's

cool history though.

Yeah.

the reason for the envelope was to keep the inside clean because it was very dirty to actually deliver these things by the time they got to the recipients. ⁓ The outside was extremely dirty and so you would actually have ⁓ both an outer envelope and an inner envelope. And so that's how we get to, you today with traditional wedding invitations you'll have that outer envelope and then you'll even have an inner envelope that'll have the different names.

Mm-hmm.

of the family who's invited, addressed by name individually. That dates back to that 1700, 1800 tradition of the outer envelope just getting so dirty from being hand delivered ⁓ on horseback on dirt roads. ⁓ So yeah, so mean, going back to why we don't recommend mailing them that way anymore is because we're not really doing hand delivery by horseback. ⁓

Mm-hmm.

I'm

Yeah.

A lot of the ⁓ mail is being sorted now by machines. ⁓ And so if you put that ⁓ wax seal on the outside of the envelope, what's going to happen is when it goes through the machine to get sorted, that's going to tear right off. And so it might damage your envelope, might damage the wax seal. It might not arrive with the wax seal on it at all. ⁓

⁓

Even if you pay for it to be hand canceled or you request for it to be hand canceled, that is something that we recommend with all wedding invitations is you actually take them to the counter at the post office and you ask them to be hand canceled. ⁓ Even if you do that, they will still be sorted by a machine, most likely at some point. If they fit through a machine, a post office worker is going to put them through a machine.

Hmm.

And does hand canceled mean like it's just handled by a person throughout the process? Or what does that mean exactly?

instead of the machine.

Yes. What it's,

yes, it's a little bit of a misnomer. What it's supposed to mean is that it's hand sorted and hand stamped, right? So canceled literally means like the stamp on the envelope is actually striped out or stamped by a hand instead of by the machine. What that doesn't mean though is that at the next destination it gets to, it won't be sorted by machine.

Hmm.

Okay.

I see.

And as we know, post office, they have to deal with hundreds of thousands of envelopes every day. And they have to get through their entire days worth of mail by 5 PM, right? By 6 PM, like whatever the cutoff date is. And so they're putting everything that they can through the machine. ⁓ So it might be hand canceled at the first destination. At the second post office gets to, it's going to be sorted by a machine no matter what. As long as it fits through that slot, it's going to be sorted that way.

Hmm.

Mm.

Yeah.

And

goes through. So all right. Well, so speaking of post office, how does weight layers and embellishments affect postage and how can couples avoid surprises at the post office?

Yeah.

Yes, definitely. So the wax seal definitely adds weight and it adds lumpiness. So that is something that can add more postage to your envelope overall. ⁓ The other thing is having a square or like other oddly shaped envelope can do it.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ OK.

⁓

I didn't even think of that, yeah.

Yes, that will cause it to be more expensive. You can't just use one forever stamp. As soon as you make it a square, it becomes in regular shape. And so that adds cost. ⁓ Even just turning the envelope vertically and writing the address vertical ⁓ is a big no-no at the post office. And so they will charge you extra for that, or they might even ask you to redo it ⁓ because it just doesn't.

Wow.

get sorted through the machine then in the correct way. And so it makes it more difficult for them to nail it. ⁓

my gosh, can you imagine

Hmm.

doing like 300

invitations one way and having to restart? Like, my goodness.

Yes, yes. So that's a big one. ⁓ Anything that makes it like too thick. So you know, people really love like double thick paper sometimes. And I usually recommend you know, that's great for the main invitation, but not to do that if you have for all of the pieces if you have a details card and an RCP card and maybe even a third card, like not to make them all double thick or triple thick paper, unless you plan to mail them as a package, because what ends up happening is if it gets too thick.

Mm-hmm.

It won't fit through the mail slot and so they won't count it as a letter anymore. They're going to count it as a package. And so then you're bumped up to ground shipping. You can't put stamps on it anymore. And they want you to pay at least, you know, $4 to ship that then with a tracking label. Yeah, so you're talking about, you know, then four times as expensive just because you made it a little bit too thick.

Mmm.

wow.

Yeah.

now so

And our next question

kind of leads into that, but I was going to ask first, like I was kind of...we were preparing for the episode and I saw the word, like, invitation suite. Is that a word that you use? Okay, I didn't realize what it meant, but essentially like all of those little fancy papers together all in one. ⁓ But have you ever had couples...

Mm-hmm. Yes.

Exactly. Sweet is just a

fancy word for set.

You

set. Yeah,

yeah. Of all the things together, but have you ever had a couple, like, kind of test one out beforehand? Like, should they take the full, like, set the suite to the post office prior just to see if there's any issues or anything like that?

Yes, definitely. So if you're not working with a designer, that's something I would highly recommend is you take the suite to the post office, to the counter, ask them to wait for you and tell you how much the postage is going to be. That will give you a pretty good idea of what the postage is going to be when you go to do the whole mailing and to make sure that there's nothing funky about your envelopes in terms of lumpiness or thickness or anything like that that's going to cause them to

⁓ be, you undeliverable. ⁓ And then if you're working with a stationer, usually they have a pretty good idea of like what's mailable. So it's not usually as necessary to take them to a post office. ⁓ You know, your stationer probably should be doing that for you in some capacity, ⁓ or is mailing out thousands of envelopes ⁓ a month. And so, you know, they usually have a pretty good idea and standard of, you know, a three piece suite, ⁓ you know, in a

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

five by seven envelope, like we know what that's gonna cost.

All right. So are there some best practices to addressing the envelopes so they arrive like clean, legible, and undamaged?

Well, what's funny is people get really ⁓ particular about the addressing component of it, but that's actually the least ⁓ likely thing to sort of mess anything up. If you think about it, well, people always ask, is the calligraphy font OK? Or is hand calligraphy OK if it's not super legible? Is that going to mess anything up? ⁓ I mean, the things that the post office cares about is the zip code, most importantly.

really?

⁓

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ And so if the zip code is legible, it's gonna make it like to the destination pretty much, ⁓ know, 99 % of the time. ⁓ You know, they're sorting everything by the zip code until it gets to that local post office. And then it's, you know, up to the local postman to kind of deliver it. And so, ⁓ you know, if a person can read it, it'll get to its destination.

Okay.

There are going to be exceptions to that, course, know, humans, you know, there's human error and everything. So, you know, I've had things, you know, get returned to sender that should have been delivered to my home address, just because, you know, whoever the post office worker that day was, you know, misread it or missorted it or whatever. So those things do happen occasionally. There's about a three to 5 % rate of

Mmm.

delay or undeliverable in the mail overall. And so we see that on our end as well, just mailing out thousands of packages and envelopes each year. It's about three to 5%, just don't make it to their destination. And it is, but if you think about just the fact that you have humans handling the mail and...

Mm-hmm.

Wow, that's pretty high.

Yeah.

Yeah.

things fall out of a bag and are in somebody's truck. like that, it's getting passed from person to person to person to person. ⁓ Yeah. And so people only really run into this when it comes to wedding invitations and then holiday cards. That's like your biggest, like you're gonna be mailing out 100 envelopes at a time or 50 envelopes at a time. And that's when people really start to notice it. ⁓ And so when you think about that, it's like, okay, out of 100 envelopes,

Yeah.

Yeah, it makes sense when you say it that way.

Mm-hmm.

three of them are going to be delayed or might go missing. And so from that perspective, ⁓ you you're going to have just, you know, a handful of your mailing end up needing to be re-mailed.

Mm-hmm.

⁓ or end up needing to be, ⁓ you know, like called individually and told that they're invited to the wedding.

Yeah. Yeah, and I guess that's hard

You're invited. Beef or fish?

because how... I mean, can you get tracking on the individual envelopes? How would a couple even know if that 3 % 5 % didn't make it to its destination? I mean, yeah, but some people just don't RCP because they did it, right? So I don't know. I guess that's hard.

Stay tuned RSVP.

Or, you know, I guess if it was someone close enough to you, they would see other people start getting their invitations and wonder where theirs is too.

Exactly. think practically that's exactly what happens is, you know, you have people not RCP and you call them up and they're like, well, I never got an invite. What we recommend to our custom invitation clients these days is that they do send out their invitations via ground, which is just a tracking label. It's still USPS, but we put it in like a rigid mailer. just, you know, we do the same process. Everything's, you know, in an addressed envelope.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

We just take that envelope, we put it in a rigid mailer, and then we put a tracking label on top of it and mail it through the post office that way. So that way you do have all the tracking labels. You can see which ones make it. If any are missing, then you can follow up and send out an additional one or see if you the address wrong, something like

And obviously that adds to the cost of postage, I'm assuming.

Cough

cough

Yeah, definitely.

Correct. the way we look at it is if you're spending thousands of dollars on your invitations, spending a couple hundred extra to make sure that those invitations make it to their destination makes sense. I think if you're spending only a couple hundred dollars on your invitations or less than $100 on your invitations, then having to mail out three to five extra ones because they didn't make it, that's

then makes more sense. And so then we would recommend doing your stamps that way instead.

Just like having insurance, I'm assuming. It just makes it safer and better way to get it there.

Yeah.

Exactly. It's like, you you ensure your headphones, your really expensive jewelry, your MacBook, but you you're not going to ensure your socks, right? Because if your socks get a hole in it, you just get new socks.

Yeah.

I love it.

Yeah. Yeah.

⁓

What can you tell couples about international invitations and mailing stuff overseas?

Yeah, so that's another place where we do recommend using like UPS ⁓ instead of USPS and using tracking ⁓ because even the USPS international mail can take a couple of weeks to get there. ⁓ we typically recommend sending that through UPS if it's not too expensive and then following up.

Yeah.

wow, okay.

with those ⁓ folks in terms of RSVPs. If you were doing a traditional mail back RSVP, which is where you actually send out a card in an envelope and ask people to mail back the RSVP card to you in order to RSVP, ⁓ you might wanna follow up with those folks internationally because the stamp is obviously not gonna work to send it back. ⁓

Yeah. Is that still pretty

common? People doing like the physical mail back?

Yeah, so I have about 50-50 these days of people still doing the mail back. So I would say it's just as common to do online RSVP these days as it is to do mail back. The pros and cons that I usually discuss with couples are ⁓ the pro of doing the mail back RSVP is really just the sentiment of it. If you've always wanted to do it and you always wanted to have that tradition and that moment of getting the RSVP envelopes back in the mail.

Really? Okay.

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

You want the formality of it. You want the tradition and you want that experience. ⁓ This is the only time in your life that you're going to really be able to do it. This is the most formal party that most couples are throwing ⁓ in their entire lives. And so, you know, this is your chance to do it. You might as well go for it. ⁓ Otherwise, ⁓ you know, in terms of tracking RSVPs, it's much easier and faster to do it with an online RSVP.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You can still have a card, can ⁓ have a QR code if you want to make it really simple for people to scan. And all you really need is your wedding website and direct people to your wedding website through a QR code or through the URL. And then half people go there and RSVP that way. That makes it a lot easier for you to track. You don't have to keep a separate spreadsheet and kind of track things as they come back to you. It's all being tracked automatically as people fill it out.

Mm.

Yeah.

It's also a lot faster because you're not waiting on the mail to go back and forth in two directions. It's as soon as it gets to the recipient, the recipient can log on and do that. And it's instantaneous that you have it back. And then the only potential con is if you have some older guests who aren't as computer savvy, ⁓ you can always have ⁓ some younger designated people, right? Like your cousin can be in charge of helping your grandma.

Right.

Hmm.

Yeah.

log on and do the RSVP. ⁓ Or those folks can always call you and RSVP, you know, over the phone and you can help them out in that way. I've also had people do both. I've had people do ⁓ mail back RSVPs for kind of the VIP guests ⁓ or, you know, guests who are a little bit less computer savvy. And then the bulk of the mailing do online RSVPs for the rest of the guests.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Hmm.

I was gonna

say, yeah.

That's probably a safer way to go, even that way. Yeah, makes it easier for everyone. So you mentioned earlier the 5 by 7 envelope. So are there invitation styles, design choices that are more friendlier than others?

Definitely.

Generally, ⁓ in order to classify as first class letter, ⁓ you have to be under a certain size. ⁓ And so you want to kind of be like A9 or below, which A9 is six by eight. ⁓ But you can get pretty large before it starts to classify as a package. ⁓ But ⁓ A7, which is a five by seven ⁓ inch invitation, is kind of the standard.

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

⁓ you know, an A9 is considered like large. ⁓ and then some people even go with like an A6 if they want to do like a petite, which is like more of like a four by six invitation. So, you know, there are some kind of ranges in there. Some people do a square, so you can do like a six by six square in there as well. so there are, you know, different styles that you can kind of fit, ⁓ within that.

Mm.

Mmm.

Love it.

I feel like you touched on this a little bit, but I don't know if you had any more tips because I know you mentioned not using thick paper, is there way to kind of balance a design that you're wanting with being practical about the way it's being mailed?

Yes, mean, I think there's so many things that you can do. And even if you do want to go really crazy and do things that are out of the box, use different materials, just because you're breaking the mold of what's considered a letter doesn't mean that you can't do it. It just means that you're going to have to send it as a package. And so like we talked about before, if you're already considering custom invitations and sending them via ground just so you have that tracking,

Mm-hmm. ⁓

Right, right.

or maybe you just want the peace of mind of it to have those tracking numbers be a part of it, then you can really go nuts, right? You can send anything then, you know, in terms of packages, right? If it fits in a cardboard box, you can send it. ⁓ So, you know, and I mean, people will send potatoes through the mail. Like, you can put a bunch of stamps on it and send it. you know, you can, like, really get away with some crazy stuff.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

I've sent you coconut once, yeah.

Hahaha.

⁓ It's just, you know, if you're sending out 100 at once and you're dependent on them getting there, you want to maybe follow the rules a little bit more. ⁓ The biggest mistake I see ⁓ as, kind of a second thing to the wax seals that we were talking about earlier is along the lines of stamps. ⁓ And people trying to save money when it comes to postage is they'll go and try and find like deals on stamps and they'll buy discounted stamps.

Yeah.

Mm.

Hmm.

⁓ And so that is also another place that people think they're getting some sort of deal. They'll go to Amazon and buy stamps from Amazon. ⁓ And the truth is that most of the stamps on Amazon are counterfeit and people don't realize that. And yeah, yes, it's really hard to catch. It's really hard to catch, ⁓ but it's really scary if it is caught by the post office that you're using counterfeit postage because they just destroy the entire mailing.

⁓

⁓

my god.

I didn't even know this was a thing.

Neither did I.

They just trash it. ⁓ So they don't even tell you that they're doing it. They don't contact you or nothing. If it's counterfeit, they just throw out the whole thing. So it's a huge, huge thing that I tell clients if they're like, I found these really cute stamps on Amazon. Can we use them? I'm like, please don't risk it. It's such a huge thing. here are the ways.

my God,

my god.

That's all.

No.

I mean, I don't think I've ever bought stamps

other than at the post office before.

Yes, I always recommend going to the post office website directly. You can tell because it has a .gov at the end of it if it has, you know, like anything else. ⁓ Yes, and you'd be surprised though, because there are a lot of official looking websites that have, ⁓ you know, URLs like us stamps.com and things like that that you would think are the official government website and they're not.

Yeah, makes it more official.

Yeah.

Secure, yeah.

⁓ And so you really want to make sure it's the official, you know, .gov, like USPS, like website. ⁓ And then ⁓ you can buy them there. You can buy them at your local post office, like at the counter. But a lot of times they don't have the same selection that they have online. And so usually the online store has the most selection there.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

so you can get the prettiest ones and all that.

Mm You can also buy them from ⁓ reputable vintage dealers if you'd love the look of vintage stamps or you just want some that are recently out of circulation. ⁓ You know, there are some reputable dealers that I recommend. Enfield Post is one. ⁓ Champion Stamps is another one. If you really like to dig and try and find different like vintage stamps, like they have a really great website to like, you know, just kind of like dig through and find things. It feels a little bit more like thrift store shopping there.

Mm.

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

⁓

Yeah.

And Postage House Road is another one that I really love. She has a lot of great like vintage stamp options and curated sets that you can buy. And so you know from those sorts of dealers that those are really reputable. ⁓ Some key like red flags to know if a stamp is probably counterfeit is if it's cheaper than the stamps sold on the USPS website.

Hmm.

Okay.

So if a Forever stamp is sold for less than 78 cents, it is 100 % counterfeit because there is no way for a stamp to be less than that amount right now, a Forever stamp. ⁓ It's not like a product. Stamps are basically legal tender of the post office, right? Like they are the post office money.

Gotcha.

Right.

Yeah, you're paying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And so it's not like with a product where I can buy, you know, cups wholesale, right? And then I'm selling them to customers, you know, at double the cost because I'm trying to make a profit. Stamps are not like that, right? It's just, it's legal tender. And so there is no way for you to discount money. You know, it'd be like if I was selling you a dollar for 75 cents, you'd be like, what's wrong with this dollar? ⁓ So, you know, anytime you see a stamp,

Yeah.

Yeah

Yeah, no.

Yeah.

Yeah.

on sale or discounted or coupons for stamps like those stamps are not real. They are 100 % just stickers printed off in China made to look like stamps.

So crazy.

Who

knew there was counterfeit stamps? I'm learning something.

Do you guys

know about that meme with Cynthia Arrevo where she's like, I didn't know this was happening. That's how I feel about this. I didn't know this was happening. Learning today. It's crazy. Yeah.

Yeah.

It's very common because they have so many cute, they have so many cute stamps on

Amazon and people think they're real. And I'm like, please don't buy them. The white rose stamp is like the biggest one that I see that people love the white rose stamp or the the ivory rose stamp they sometimes call it. This stamp is so rare. Like if you see this stamp and it's not $7 a stamp.

⁓

Please.

I see that all the time. Yeah.

it is counterfeit because the stamp has been basically bought out of existence by brides. And so the stamp is, the stamp, like the legitimate version of the stamp is so, so rare because there's very few of them left. And so like at my reputable dealers, they're selling the stamp for $7 each, even though it's only worth 78 cents. No, per stamp. Yes. Yeah. So it's very, very expensive.

Wow.

Wow.

Like per, not she, like per stamp, per singular. I didn't know people were taking stamps

Wow.

this seriously. That's crazy. Wow.

Yes, well, if

you're like a stamp collector, know, like you there, there are some stamps that are really rare. There are, you know, you have a whole book of, you know, all the different stamps, you might have all the different state stamps, you you might have all the floral stamps. Yes.

That's true.

Right.

My uncle collected stamps. Yep. It

That's cool.

was a big

thing. all right, Jaime, we're getting ready to wrap up. So if you could give couples one insider tip to make mailing invitations stress for you, what would it be?

Yeah.

I would definitely say to take your invitations to the post office, you know, talk to the people behind the counter. The people are usually very knowledgeable there. They're very friendly and willing to help you. I know my local post office, everyone that works there, I know them on a first name basis because I'm in the post office twice a day. And they're, you know, they're very friendly and so willing to help you out. And so, you know, that would be my biggest piece of advice.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

That's cute.

But don't be surprised if sometimes you get ⁓ different advice ⁓ from two different post office workers. So, you know, I would say if you do get two different pieces of advice, you know, one person says two stamps, another person says one stamp, it's always better to just go with more postage than less postage. you know, that.

Mmm.

Two.

Yeah.

would be my tip is you kind of err on the side of more postage and to definitely use the resources that you have in your local branch instead of just dropping them in some sort of blue box ⁓ and hoping that they make it to their destination.

Yeah. And I could see the post office workers getting excited because it's not the normal, you know, not the normal things they're dealing with. They're dealing with something fun and cute and something memorable. Yeah, I love that.

Exactly. Exactly. They're

always really happy when I come in with stacks and stacks of wedding invitations.

Yeah.

Where what are they for? I love it. All right. So Jaime, where can couples find you and learn more about your stationery and invitation process?

Jaime's here.

Mm-hmm.

Absolutely, so you can find me online at cottonandbow.com or on Instagram at Cotton and Bow Paper.

All right, and we will make sure to have all of Jaime's information. And also, think August, we should put in all those vintage stamp folks in there as well. Yeah, OK. Yeah.

literally thinking the same or like the champion.com or the other one you mentioned,

like where to get reputable stamps other than the post office. think I'll slide those in there too because I think that's really good information.

Yeah,

yeah, very good information.

Yes, if you actually

⁓ comment on any of my Instagram posts, the word mailing, I have a mailing guide that I can send you. ⁓ Yes, I'll DM it to you for free. And it goes through all of these great tips plus more. ⁓ It goes through how much ⁓ different envelopes cost. ⁓

Writing that down.

If you have just a plain invite versus an invite in a details card or an invite in a details card or a SP card, know kind how much you can expect that to cost. And it also talks about vintage stamps and some other good details in there.

Perfect. right. I'm going to say we're going to put that in the show notes too so you can get more information out there and help folks. So all right, Jaime, I can't thank you enough. I'm impressed that we went 40 minutes talking about the post office. And I feel like we just scratched the surface, so to speak. I feel like there was more information we could have got out there. So Jaime, we can't thank you for your time. We appreciate you being here today.

yes, we would love the guide. think that would be great to put in the show notes. So, yeah.

I loved it. It was great. Yeah.

And folks, thank you for listening to another episode of Now That I'm Engaged, How to Get Married. We'll see you next time.