Please tell me hand cancelling doesn't actually matter....

I had never even heard of hand cancelling until now, haha. I got my invitation addresses printed and still had two returned to us, so there just aren’t any guarantees no matter what you do, I guess. I think if your envelopes are too complicated or bulky you’ll probably be fine!

**aren’t too bulky or complicated

What’s “hand cancelling”?

I hand addressed my Invites and Save The Dates and they held up just fine despite not being hand canceled! (I actually had to look up what that meant). Only 2/80 of my postcard Save The Dates were returned (0 invites returned) and both were in decent condition when I received them despite going through twice the amount of handling. The invites held up MUCH better in the mail and were no worse for wear, despite having gone through the machine.


I know it was a rude shock and not what you were expecting but it will be okay!

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That is true, I guess you can never know anyway! Thank you Liz!

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It's when they manually stamp your envelopes so it doesn't have to go through the machine

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That is very reassuring!! I really appreciate your input, I do think the shock of it really got to me but you're right I'm sure it will be fine. Thank you Grace!

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a common practice anymore. I did a test run to weigh my invitation suite and buy postage, and a postal employee (who has worked there for 10+ years) hand canceled my parents’ wedding invitation. I assumed this would be the case when I was ready to mail all our invitations. I got their early, as she requested, and had a box of about 80 invites. A different employee (probably my age or a few years younger than me) took the box and said he’d process them between customers (he even told me he just sent his wedding invitations). Unfortunately, I quickly realized that they weren’t hand canceled, as some family and friends told me that their sticker seals on the back of their envelopes were cut (glad I didn’t pay for wax seals!), their invitations were opened, and/or black markings were on the front of the envelopes (leading me to believe that some were caught in the processing machines). Our RSVP deadline is this week, so we aren’t 100% sure if any were lost (as we are still waiting for quite a few responses), but, despite the above issues, everyone that we have heard from said they received the full invitation suite and the cards were not bent or damaged in any way (I think the belly band really helped keep everything together).

View Quoted Comment ^ I was wondering the same!

View Quoted Comment Interesting! I never knew this was even a thing. Good to know.

View Quoted Comment I didn’t know till I started using WeddingWire haha

I just learned about hand cancelling today, but you should be fine!

I write snail mail to a few friends and letter their names (calligraphic style) all the time and it gets to them just fine and normal!

Thats shocks me! What terrible customer service! I had a very different experience. My invitations were pretty heavy and I had a wax stamp sticker on each of them, so I made sure they were hand stamped. When I went in, I told her it was for my wedding and she let me pick out a stamp to use (she had one with hearts). I'm so sorry you had that experience! Honestly, if there wasn't anything too bulky on the invites, like wax stamps, I wouldn't worry about it too much.

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I'm so sorry that happened to you! So glad everyone got everything in one piece though. I am trying to just let it go and remember that in the grand scheme this doesn't matter very much!

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Good to hear thank you Mayene!

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Omg that sounds like my dream experience, so glad you got to have that! Thankfully we didn't do anything heavy so crossing my fingers it will all be fine