A few months ago, the save the dates were finally mailed! What a huge project to complete! Of course, I can never accomplish anything without a long winded story about how dramatic it was and descriptions of all the hurdles I had to jump over. So, here it goes! Basically, it boiled down to the mailing being too bulky for normal postage. As most of you know, there was a balloon in each envelope. Being the paranoid person that I am, I also did not want the envelope run through any sorting or stamping machine at the post office. I mean, how much time did we put into making these perfect? I wanted them to arrive at the recipients' doors perfect too- gosh darn it! I had heard about this little tiny post office in Bridal Veil, Oregon that mailed bridal invitations without running them through the machine, therefore, "hand cancelling" the postage individually. I thought this was an urban legend, but after reading several blogs talking about this post office, I decided I'd see if it was true and then possibly we could send out save the dates from there. I know what you're thinking and I agree, not a huge deal if the envelope is a little crinkly, right? But I had heard horror stories and I would be so sad if someone got a balloon with holes in it or a torn card!
So, I called the post office in Oregon and, surprisingly, I got a cheerful, "Hello! Bridal Veil Post Office, this is Geri, can I help you?" I think I stammered a little and then finally uttered something like, "Geri? Are you for real? Is it true?" haha! In the end, she confirmed that, yes, they do hand stamp all envelopes and there is a small fee per envelope after the first 50, etc. etc. I thought great! A little extra charge, but let's do it! Ok, most of my life I have had my clearest thoughts right before I fall asleep and during this engagement has been no different. So right before my little eyes fell shut one night, I realized that there has to be a "small town" post office in Minnesota just like this Bridal Veil one that I could simply drive to. I mean Minnesota is full of small towns! I had heard of brides trying to go to post offices and asking the clerks to use the "hand stamp" themselves. One girl on a wedding blog said she had to bring cookies to the staff for a week before she could convince them to hand over the precious stamp to her, which I guess is, ultimately, illegal. So the next day I went on a research spree to find a po-dunk post office closer to home that would let me stamp my precious envelopes. After a few no's and a couple laughs out loud at such an absurd question, I finally reached an angel from above, Darren from the Lake City post office. Just a little town outside of my hometown of Red Wing (Red Wing post office said absolutely not, by the way), the clerk said "Well, of course! Come on over!" GREAT!! Problem solved. So I asked my mom to come with me (she loves Lake City) and we drove the 1.5 hours to stamp each of the close to 400 envelopes by hand. Yes, I can't believe we did this. The End!
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