International postage is something you might not run into, but almost every wedding we’ve done has had at least one international guest, so it’s nice to have a few tips!
One of our very first weddings was for a client who was temporarily living in Austria, but the bride was originally from Canada and the groom was from Maine. So we had an address list that was half in Canada and half in America, and to top off the all-over-the-map craziness, the RSVP address was in Canada. So we needed to order Canadian postage for half of the RSVP envelopes- they were going Canada to Canada. The other half needed to have US to Canada postage. Lots of geography to keep an eye on!
Your situation might not be as involved, but international postage is definitely something to think about. Here are our tips:
– Make sure to separate out your international invitations: these will need extra postage. It might be as easy as putting on two or three stamps instead of one, but you should check these individually with the post office before you mail.
– For the reply envelopes for international guests, you may need to leave off postage (well, you could put it on, but… they won’t be able to use it). The USPS used to offer vouchers that could be redeemed for the guest’s country’s postage to the US, but they no longer carry those (for trivia night: these “international reply coupons” were actually used in the original 1920 Ponzi scheme!). If a significant portion of your list is in the same country, it might be worth looking into ordering postage directly from there for those (like in our above example).
– If there are more than a few international guests, make sure to account for additional mailing postage in your budget, as it can make a significant difference.
background image: renee hollingshead photography
Great tip! Very useful info…
Such great advice! It’s so easy to fall in love with your invitations design and forget about the postage until it’s actually time to mail everything.
I think this is something that gets overlooked. We had some international invitations to send and at the time weren’t sure how to go about it. Great advice!
This is a great post. There are so many things that brides don’t even think about ahead of time – good thing there are so many great wedding sites to help them out! Good tip!
Oh wow- I have NEVER even thought of this! Thank you so much for sharing these tips!