Etiquette Series | Postage

One of the most frequent questions I get as we are finalizing the wedding invitation process is “how much will it cost to mail my invitations”. So I figured this would be a good time to sum up all of the different items and factors that go into calculating your correct postage for your wedding invitations.

Let’s start with the mailing envelope for the wedding invitation suite. Standard USPS postage is currently $.55 to mail a 1 ounce or less envelope. From there, each ounce added to the envelope will cost an additional $.15, up to 3.5 ounces. On average, wedding invitation suites weigh between 1 and 2 ounces, causing postage to be at least $.70. This, of course, all depends on how many pieces are in your suite, the weight of your paper, etc. If you have an enclosure holding all of your pieces together, then it usually pushes the weight up over 3 ounces, costing $.85 – $1.00 to mail.

(USPS Stamps)

Some other items that need to be taken into consideration for postage are non-machinable items. If you have wax seals, ribbon, or a super thick suite, the post office is not able to run it through their standard machines to process it. Therefore, they have to process it by hand, which costs an additional $.15 on top of what it would cost based on weight. Keep in mind, even if your wax seal is on the inside of your mailing envelope, it is still non-machinable. USPS is basically looking for anything that makes your envelope “bulge” and preventing it from running through the machine. Another factor that can cause the rate to go up is if your envelope is square or over 7” in height. The post office machine runs envelopes that are rectangular in nature, so if it is square or over 7” in height, it will require an additional ounce rate ($.15).

(Custom Designed Stamp)

So let’s say you have an invitation that weighs 2.1 ounces and you have a wax seal in your suite, it would cost $.70 (your 1 ounce rate of $.55 + an additional ounce for $.15) + $.15 (non-machinable rate) to equal $.85 to mail the entire suite.

My best advice when trying to determine what it will cost to mail your suite is to take a completed suite to the post office that you intend to mail them from, and have them check it.

(Vintage Stamps)

So now that we’ve covered the main mailing envelope, there are a few other pieces you will need stamps for. The response envelope, which is generally 3.5×5 or 4×5, and a single card, will only cost 1 ounce ($.55) to mail. Don’t forget to pre-stamp these for your guest! Another item could possibly be a save the date. Depending on the style you’ve chosen, more than likely it will only cost the 1-ounce rate to mail, this is assuming you haven’t added any non-machinable items to your save the date. If you are doing a save the date postcard (or even an RSVP postcard for that matter), the postage rate for postcards is $.35, and USPS makes a special stamp just for that.

I hope this helps explain everything that goes into mailing your beautiful wedding invitations!

-heather