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Key Takeaways
Hand-cancel your wedding invitations to prevent your beautiful envelopes from getting damaged by the post office machines.
Check with your local postmaster to ensure your invitations have the right postage and aren’t too bulky.
Consider visiting the post office during quiet hours and clearly marking envelopes for hand-canceling to avoid mistakes.
There are infinite ways to dress up your wedding invitations, from belly bands and pocket folds to fabric-covered boxes and multi-piece wedding weekend kits. While adding a little extra detail to your invites doesn’t have to cause the cost to skyrocket, the more pieces and three-dimensional items you add can make sending out your invitations a little more complicated. Most mail is canceled by machines (that’s what prints those lines and dates over postage stamps), but if the envelope is uneven or bulky, the machine can cause the envelope to rip and can potentially damage whatever is inside. That’s where hand-canceling comes in.
What Is Hand-Canceling?
Hand-canceling is when each stamp on your envelope is marked (or “canceled”) using a hand stamp instead of by a machine. Hand-canceling invitations prevents stuffed envelopes from being torn by the post office’s machine.
Does this service sound like something you might need? Here are a few tips to keep in mind before you head to the mailbox.
Check With Your Postmaster
Before you apply any stamps to your invitations, assemble a mock-up (complete with all the inserts and accoutrements) and bring it to the post office to be weighed and checked by the postmaster or another USPS employee. They will be able to check if your envelope is too bulky to be canceled by machine, as well as tell you how much postage you’ll need based on the weight of your invitations.
Purchase the Correct Postage
Now that you know how much your invitation weighs and if it requires hand-canceling, purchase a combination of stamps (or a single custom stamp) that reaches your necessary postage. For example, an envelope that is light enough to be mailed using a $0.63 first-class stamp (up to 1 oz.) would require $0.76 of postage if it needs to be canceled manually.
Remember that the service requires an extra cost (currently $0.24), so if your envelopes need to be canceled by hand, that amount needs to be included in the postage.
Do It Yourself
While it varies from place to place, some post offices will allow you to hand-cancel envelopes yourself. You’ll have to stamp all the envelopes in the post office, but you’ll be able to see that everything was handled carefully.
Make It Clear
Can’t hand cancel the envelopes yourself? No problem, the postmaster or another post office employee will be able to do it for you. Try to head to the post office at an off-hour so you can talk with the post office employee about what you’ll need, and consider printing “Hand Cancel” in the upper left corner of your envelopes (opposite the stamps) so nothing gets missed.
