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Different Types of Stamps for Your Wedding Invitations

Heather O'Brien Design | Types of Wedding Stamps

On a previous blog post, I covered all you needed to know about postage and mailing your wedding invitations. It was more of the logistics behind the price and how to determine your postage rate. So I figured this would be a fun follow up to talk about all the different types of stamps you can use! It’s no secret that I am obsessed with postage, I have stacks and stacks of both USPS postage and vintage postage. They just help make any envelope SO pretty!

There are two different styles of postage you can go with when determining what you want for your wedding invitations, USPS standard or USPS Vintage. There are a few things that can go into choosing the right one for your envelopes: cost, style and time.

USPS Standard Stamps:

Let’s start with the basic here. These are your run of the mill stamps you normally see that you can get from your local post office or order off of USPS.com. These are “normal” go to ones for a few different reasons. One, you pay face value for them. If it costs $.70 to mail your envelope, you’ll only pay $.70 per envelope. These are also more readily accessible.

Heather O'Brien Design | Types of Wedding Stamps

A few set backs to USPS stamps. You are pretty limited on what designs you can use. USPS, well, let’s just say that they have an interesting sense of humor when it comes to what designs they release for their stamps. There really aren’t too many options, especially when it comes to weddings. I will say, however, last year USPS released a new set of “classic” stamps that have been my go-to lately. They mimic the vintage look, don’t have crazy colors in them and go with a lot of styles.

Heather O'Brien Design | Types of Wedding Stamps


USPS Vintage Stamps:

These are my personal favorite! They are just SO pretty and there are so many options! Vintage stamps are simply that, older stamps that have been around since they were released by the post office years and and years ago. These are stamps that have varying currencies for each one, so you have to put together a combination of vintage stamps to equal what it would cost to mail your invitations. For instance, if you needed $.70 to mail your envelope, you could have a $.28, $.07, $.15, $.17, and $.03 stamp all on your envelope to get you to the $.70 you need. The post office doesn’t care how many stamps you have, as long as they equal up to the correct cost to mail. Vintage stamps are also only worth their face value to the post office. So even if you paid $10 for a $.20 stamp, it is still only going to be good for $.20 to the post office.

Heather O'Brien Design | Types of Wedding Stamps

There are several ways to get vintage stamps. Most of the time you work with a stamp collector. You can find them online on Etsy or sometimes even local in your city. Some collectors will even work with you to come up with the perfect “set” to match you wedding colors/theme and postage price you need. Most stationery designers also offer this as a service so you don’t have to work with another vendor.

And for those of you wondering why I don’t have custom-designed postage stamps listed here, well that’s because, unfortunately, USPS has discontinued the production of any custom postage as of June 8, 2020. USPS will still accept previously printed custom postage, however, Zazzle, PhotoStamps.com, Minted and others are no longer allowed to sell custom-designed postage stamps.

Heather O'Brien Design | Types of Wedding Stamps

I hope this helps when you’re trying to determine what type of stamps are perfect for your wedding invitations!

-heather

  1. Hello. This post was extremely interesting, particularly because I was looking for ideas on this subject last Thursday.

    King regards,
    Lunding Raahauge

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