RSVPs and the Internation Postage Update

I finally purchased the "International Reply Coupon" I mentioned a few posts back. I think that since DC is such a great mix of people from all over the US and the world, I bet there are some of you (I know one nearlywed blogger for sure!) who are sending invites overseas.

So, since some countries don't sell stamps that you can just attach to the RSVP postcard or envelopes (ex: the UK. The postage they sell online has an expiration date!), you can purchase for $2.15 the "International Reply Coupon." Essentially, so long as the country you are mailing the invitation to is part of the Universal Postal Union, the recipient of your invitation can take the international reply coupon to their post office and exchange it for the minimum postage needed to send the RSVP back. It's a lot of work, but unfortunately for me and my guests, this was my only option since I didn't want my guests to have to pay for their own postage to send my RSVPs back.

Here is what they look like (they were originally $1.85 so they had to add additional stamps to make it $2.15)

Here is my dog approving:

So I am sending instructions in the invitations for our overseas guests. I hope it works!

Miss Glen Echo: It's $1.40 to send a postcard/greeting card from Australia. You can get info and stamps here! Good luck!

Another option that I didn't think about is sending the invitations un-sealed to someone in that country and have them purchase the postage, stamp the RSVP, and then mail it out to the guests in that country. Still sounds like too much work !

But speaking of RSVPs, I got my first one in the mail this afternoon!

I think now the worse part will be waiting! What projects did you work on while waiting on RSVPs?

Sigh of relief!

I dropped my invitations in the mail yesterday. That was an incredible relief! I must say the folks at the Arlington post office were super nice and made sure that I had the correct postage and everything.

Sepaking of correct postage, there was another bride with me in the post office who had a really unfortunate incident. She bought the wrong postage and had already stamped her 200 invitations just to get to the window to be told her size envelopes needed more postage. I felt so bad for her and ended up helping her re-stamp her invitations in the post office so she could get them out in time.

I did run into a little snag--I am sending invitations to England. I am still waiting on stamps from England to put on the RSVPs. This was due to poor planning on my part. Here I am assembling a million little pieces of paper not even realizing that I had no return stamps from the countries I was sending invitaions to! So now I am waiting to get my UK stamps so I can send out a few more invitations.

So be sure to get the right postage! Bring one invitation to the post office to have them weigh it before you splurge on postage!

And if you're sending invitations overseas and you plan on paying for the return postage, get postage from that country:-) It's taken about a week and a half since I purchased the UK stamps. This puts me a little under 7 weeks to get the invites out to my overseas guests.

Hope everyone's planning is going well!