A bit surprised & upset...

A bit surprised & upset...

I`m not going to let this get me too upset, but I specifically had the post office hand cancel my invitations, and have now confirmed that not only did they hand cancel the stamps, they also ran all the invitations through the machine anyway. So my efforts to avoid having those ugly black streaks across the envelopes was for nothing.

Hope this doesn`t happen to anyone else out there. It was very disappointing to see this on my parents` and grandmother`s invitations among others. The invitations were given to the post office in a box and were in alphabetical order by last name, so there is no way they only ran some through the machine and not others.

A bit surprised & upset...

After u printed that last time I asked the postman. (I actually had to mail one of my invites to the lady who is making my unity candle) They told me it doesnt matter and that they run it thru anyway. No way to avoid it! Sorry.

A bit surprised & upset...

You are right Jenny...I asked the woman at the post office also and she says that they run them through the machine anyway. Its really too bad that they make us feel that if we hand cancel them they will be treated special but in reality is all just mail to them!!

A bit surprised & upset...

Well, it IS mail.
Don't sweat it, no one else but you will notice this.

A bit surprised & upset...

Mine definitely weren't run through the machine. Maybe it depends on the post office you use?

A bit surprised & upset...

I was actually surprised to see that they had hand canceled them at my post office (Little Neck). My FI droped them off and I forgot to mention it to him. He said the postal lady did ask if they were wedding inviatations. I guess they aren't that busy in Little Neck.

But then what`s the point??

Sure, the wedding invitations are mail, but why offer hand canceling if they`re just going to go through the machine anyway? That just doesn`t make any sense.

Since my original post on this topic, according to a lady I spoke with this afternoon at the post office I brought them to, it is NOT standard procedure to put hand canceled mail through the machine and this was a mistake. Hand canceled mail is supposed to go into a seperate bin and is not to be worked again. By going through the machine, it`s just double work for the Post Office.

Modern equivelant...

The purpose of two envelopes is because the outside envelope takes all the dirt, and the inner envelope remains pristine. Of course, in the old days, the footman delivered them by hand through the filthy streets and the butler would remove the outer envelope, leaving only the clean, inner envelope on the silver tray with the coorespondence and calling cards received that day...

I read way to many historical novels!:-)

Modern equivelant...

I didn't even know until now about any of this, and I got married almost a year ago.
If someone is going to judge you becasue you invitations went though a machine rather than being stamped by hand, they're not very nice people.

It's unfortunate that they offered a service and someone at the post office didn't do their job properly. My point in saying that it is mail, is that you shouldn't sweat the small stuff, things like that will happen.

Just look forward to the wedding... and enjoy your final days as a single lady

If only...

Karen H. - if only my guests had butlers, than I wouldn`t have even bothered to hand cancel the outer envelopes, since those wouldn`t be seen by the guests anyway.

KGB - I`m sure none of my guests are looking at the envelope saying, 'I can`t believe she let these go through the machine.' I know it`s not a big deal, but we all try to make the best presentation for our weddings, and this was part of my presentation that I wanted to make, so I`m a bit disappointed. There is nothing more that I look forward to these days than our wedding. My post was more of a 'heads up' to others who are doing the hand canceling. They might want to make sure to remind the person at the counter not to put them in to be machine processed. But then again, the person might not appreciate being told how to do their job and would probably make sure the machine was overflowing with ink so the stamp comes out extra heavy! :)

Guess the post office needs to justify their lack of ability to be profitable, so they do double the work. Or maybe the person was just looking for overtime, so they ran the invitations through the machine anyway!

A bit surprised & upset...

my dad retired from the post office a few years ago and they are not allowed to make a profit...its funny b/c they cannot lose money either - they must break even...so lets say they need to raise postage 1/2 cent, they would need to raise it the whole cent, but then they would make a profit..my dad used to get useless things mailed to him (theory...they were trying to waste money :) ) so maybe doing things twice to get rid of the profit..;)

Sorry to hear that happened to you...

Mine were hand canceled as well(by me) and the person at the window took them in the boxes and told me he would make sure that they did not get run through the machine. The only downside I later found, was that it took them 2 days longer to get to where they were going because they were not run through the machine.

I understand what you are saying Kel, because I spent hours and hours at my computer addressing each invitation and inside envelope and I would have been upset if after all that work the post office had put that ugly stamp on them.

Unfortunately now there is nothing you can do and believe me..on your wedding day you won't even think about it. I suppose it is just one of those things that make us mad but that we let go of eventually.

How timely...

A friend of mine just went to the post office today with her invites. She only had about half of them done (international and out of state). She asked about hand cancelling, and their attitude was, lets say, less than satisfactory. They said, well we can't do it right now, and she said that was fine. She said she would be back tom. with more, and the guy was like well we're very busy in the mornings. Meanwhile there was nobody in there when she went this morning! I'm going to suggest to her to perhaps use a different post office for the rest!

How timely...

We used the Commack post office and they were more than helpful. They let us hand cancel them ourselves and then he took them and promised to look after them! They never went through a machine and arrived looking great. We did go on a weekday morning when it was quieter. I highly recommend Commack PO.

They seemed very nice ..

The post office seemed more than willing to help out .. just some knuckle-head made a mistake.

In my planning, I have found it very helpful to pick up the phone and make phone calls before heading somewhere. Definitely call around to different post offices in your area to see what their attitude is. I`m just chalking this up to an unlucky mistake.