inflation

I am trying to take care of little things as early as possible so that I don't lose my mind closer to the wedding date - which I am afraid is already happening. So, between my classes the other day, I went to the post office in order to buy stamps for our invitations. we haven't gocco'ed them yet (or even finished the design... ahem... eddie!!!) but we do have the paper cut to size (thank you, Bonny!!) and ready to go. I took a "sample" invite along with me to weigh and purchase proper postage. I also wanted to confirm that the size of our rsvp postcard fit the proper dimensions for mailing. I know the minimum size is 3 ½” x 5” and the maximum is 4 ¼” x 6” (this is heighth x length, with the length being the side that is parallel to the printed address) and that it has to be rectangular in shape, but wasn't sure if the corners could be rounded (I learned that they can be!) and just wanted to hear an actual postal service employee assure me that our 4" x 6" postcards would come back to me safely. ;)

Anywho - after waiting in the line, I busted out my "sample" invite in it's nice little envelope and said that I was planning to mail them out in the next two weeks or so and was sure the price of stamps weren't going to go up in the meantime, haha. To which the lady replied, "Don't be so sure about that... haha." I didn't think it was very funny. Well, turns out the prices aren't going up in the next two weeks, but will be going up in May, so if any of my guests send their RSVPs back after that time (which is highly possible) the postcard stamp I put on them now will not work! Their suggestion was to wait until after the change in postage rates cuz they are also coming out with some pretty wedding-themed stamps. But I can't send my invites out after May 15th! That would leave litle to no time for rsvps to be sent back in time to create a seating chart and all the other good stuff. ugh.

We went back and forth over all my different options for 15 minutes or so. Two ladies came to help me and were really nice about it, pulling out all sorts of different stamps. The additional problem is that because they know the price of postage is increasing, they have not been producing much more of the current ones and so the selection is very slim. I could have used a current postcard stamp and added two 1 cent stamps (since the price is increasing by 2 cents) but the only 1 cent stamps they had were these ugly insects; which didn't look very nice next to the fruit themed postcard stamps. They were also running low on the 68 cent stamps and only had tiffany lamps or mickey mouse ones, which may have worked since we were engaged at disneyland... but even then, I would have had to add some ugly insects to meet the proper postage requirement for our whole invitation suite.

In the end, I sorta' kinda' "wasted" 10 cents per invite in order to have pretty heart stamps on both the invite and the rsvp card. This also gives me some cushion for the chance of any of the invites weighing more than others. I know that sounds crazy, but have heard of it happening with hand-made cards/invitations. So, I am using a regular mailing stamp on our rsvp postcards, which slightly defeats the purpose of having a poastcard rsvp in order to save money on the postage... but I guess it evens out in the end since I didn't have to spend money on a little rsvp envelope. Or at least that is how I justify my pretty stamps. ;)

okay. this was a very long story. but the moral is - don't buy stamps too far in advance, cuz the price of those suckers keep rising! Also, if you are sending your invites out after May 11, lucky you! You are going to have some nice, new choices for wedding-themed stamps! Here are the three they showed me in a booklet in the post office (but they weren't available for purchase yet):


These are the two we are using:


Now all I can think is, "they're just stamps! get over it!" so, I am. ;)