I would start contacting your guests that have yet to RSVP and let them know what's going on. There really isn't much else that you can do. It isn't your fault, everyone will understand.
@Birdee106: +1
@romantical: Sorry this happened to you, OP :( No wonder the USPS is failing at being a business?
@romantical: I can tell you exactly what happened. Just becasue you pay for the "hand sorting" price does not mean they were hand sorted. All "hand sorted" mail is ran through the machine at least 1 time per main processing center. So if you are mailing a letter a few states away, that can be 3-5 centers.
2nd, those lace things are not mailing envelopes. You are going to need to stick them into real envelopes-make sure they are thick. Square thick envelopes will stick out and be pulled out by the clerks. Dark colors are good too-as the machene can't read barcodes on dark envelopes.
3rd a sticker doesn't 'seal' an envelope You need to make sure it's glued shut. Drop your letter from waist high. Does it pop open? Well it's going to get trashed.
When a letter is torn, we send it to "nixie" (the ripped mail unit) and we put it in one of those bags. That's all we do really. It's just procedure.
I work at a pd&c
Oh no! This was on of my biggest fears; I'm so sorry.
I agree with the above...divide up the list based on guests (FIL's guest list, yours, FI's, your parents), and have them send out an email/call to their people to see if they got it.
Make sure your website is updated and direct people to that for information. OP, I feel so sorry for you! Did you ask the post office to hand cancel?
Honestly, it looks as though you tried to use that delicate envelope incorrectly. You should have placed them in a real outer envelope and used the delicate one as the inner envelope. I'm totally not surprised these got destroyed.
@MadTownGirl: hand canceling won't matter. You pay the "hand sorting" price becase the letter won't fit into a dbcs machiene. But every center has a few DIOS machienes that run ALL kinds of mail and some flutter/tiny flats. So we run everything at LEAST once and try our best to cull out what obviously can't run. But we can't see everything. A small processing center will process 2 million letters a night.
wow that really sucks. Those are beautiful invitations. We also had square invitations but didn't run into any problems, (luckily.) I would start contacting the people who have yet to RSVP and explaining the situaiton.
@MissFireFlower: I seem to remember a 'sticky' in the Paper area bout this....
Also: when it looks like mail was ripped open, it's becasue mail runs through 1-3 macheines like this a night, and when things get caught in the belts we have to pull it out. Sometimes ripping is unaviodable. Sometimes things catch on fire
I've read your post three times now, trying to figure out where you said that you didn't use a regular envelope/used a sticker to "seal" them. I don't see that, so I'm hoping those are just assumptions on the part of others.
I'm sorry this happened to you, but...if it was more than two or three, it was most likely the way you mailed them.
Okay, I think I should clarify something.. the above picture is JUST the invitation itself. They were sent in these envelopes..
The bottom of the flaps were completely glued down, before a sticker was even placed. Maybe I could have glued down the entire flap completely, but I thought these were harmless enough.
I realize there's a crapload of mail that goes out every day and that things go awry, so I'm not looking to point fingers. I would, however, appreciate any insight as to what may have gone wrong and constructive advice as to what to do next. So please do not use this thread as a rant and look at this as a bride looking to other brides for advice.
Thanks to the ladies who gave kind suggestions!
That is so awful. I had square envelopes similar to yours and had no problems!
It happens that things get ruined. Not destroyed so I don't understand that, but we had a lot of our normal invite sized envelopes come back looking like hell and ripped at the corners. They get caught on stuff and rip. Not much you can do unfortunately.
@romantical: I didn't mean to come off as angry. I reread my post and it does sound that way. Sorry D:
I wish there was a way to track what got missent/ripped and what didn't. It's pretty lame actually. Yesterday someone ordered 10 ticked from ticketmaster for some sort of game and the envelope got completely shredded. There was no way to identify the sender at.all. I felt so bad for that person.
From the picture, I can see that the top left corner is kind of open. That's the same hieght as the gates that sort the mail. It's the place that letters most often get caught. That's most likely what happened.
Also, delievery standards and practices have changed internally. We do a lot more processing of mailers/ads then we used to. When we run so much '3rd class' /standard mail at one time it's not good. It cloggs our machines. A lot more stuff is getting stuck now.
@romantical: That is terrible!! Especially since you had those in the inner envelope. I was thinking of sending invites made of real vinyl records but your horror story has completely changed my mind. This is the stuff people never talk about so thank you for sharing your story!
Okay, I was hoping that you'd used regular envelopes. Good. It's really weird that so many of your invites came through the mail damaged. I've been sending and receiving letters/packages for over 15 years, domestic and internationally, and I cannot remember ever having an issue to this extent. This is nuts. With the extent of the damage to them, I don't think gluing the whole flap down would have made a difference, but it's a good idea for the future.
Aside from gross negligence at your post office, I can't think of anything. We literally get mail at work on a daily basis where the flap is just tucked into the envelope, sealed with a piece of scotch tape, thin envelopes with only a check in it, and every combination thereof. They all get here unscathed.
If you have any extras to send a couple of people, take them to a different post office and see if that helps.
@MissFireFlower: You know what? It's actually really helpful having someone who's in the business explaining this, so thank you. That's probably exactly what happened, because the invites were still intact - just the envelopes suffered.
At this point, I don't even care how the invitations look when they get to the guests.. just as long as they got one..!
The other problem is that my wedding website URL is on a note inside these invites.. (I didn't have my website ready for when I sent out my save-the-dates). Blah, it is what it is.
PS. That really sucks for those ticket holders!
Oh no! I'm having my own postal problems with responses not getting back to me, but, yeesh, I'm so sorry! I'd just start calling people and explain how there was a snafu with the post office - it happens so often, people will understand!
@romantical: again, sorry I sounded so bitchy. Sometimes we have a bad night and lots of things get ruined. If they got trashed in your hometown, it would take them FOREVER to get to their destination. Like-1 week to 2 weeks long.
@vorpalette: Thanks for the advice. I never had mail problems before too, so this kind of came as a surprise.
If it makes any difference at all, I had brought down the entire box of invites to my concierge who delivered it directly to our mailman. What happens after that, I just keep my fingers crossed lol
@MissFireFlower: Lol, no worries girl. I still like you! Okay, so maybe there's a chance that the invites are still on the way. Orrrr.... maybe I just have procrastinating guests who still won't RSVP. That's a pretty legit problem in itself :-P
@romantical: This.
I had literally 40 (out of 160 invited guests) who hadn't RSVP'd by the deadline on the invitation.
We waited about a week until after the due date to start contacting people. We got a lot of late RSVP cards, my FI's mother had to call a bunch of people from their side of the family, and FI and I ended up having to call a few friends of ours to find out what they wanted to eat.
Some people are just not considerate. :/
I feel so bad for you, that really stinks! On a sidenote, LOVE the inner envelope! It's beautiful!! Too bad some of your guests don't get to see it (and, unfortunately, you wasted money, and probably a pretty penny at that, to have them destroyed by the post office machines!).
My aunt is a postmaster so I'm going to be getting her advice before we order our invites in a couple weeks after reading your post!
@evergladebee: Please don't let my incident discourage you from that awesome idea! Maybe it's just my luck, seriously. My envelopes are on the tall side, so I really didn't know what to expect when sending them.
@rachelmichelle: Thanks for mentioning that, Rachel. I will most likely have to end up calling lots of people. Asians are notorious for being late with everything lol
@reebs83: Thank you! I still don't regret my decision with choosing the invite, as the people who did receive them absolutely loved them. And yes, ask your aunt everything!
What you can do now.... send some simple follow-up invites by mail, maybe the basic cardstock they do at vistaprint (which is always on groupon), explaining that due to USPS issues just brought to your attention, you realize not everyone might have gotten their invite, so here is all the information again.
I would not wait till the RSVP deadline as you have good reason to believe some folks might not even know they are invited, and it is not fair to wait until they make other plans or can't afford airline tickets to start trying to contact them.
I would avoid using the sticker on the back--- depending on the strength of the glue, that may or may not stay nicely shut, and if it ends up with a sticking-up edge, that right there can get caught in the sorting machine. Even if you've got good glue, by the 50th envelope you've shoved a sticker on, you might not be doing it very firmly any more. Stick to plain, flat paper, using inks for your deocrations; even the ridges created by the filligree paper inside the heavier envelope might be enough to get the whole parcel eaten by a machine somewhere.
BTW I really have a hard time faulting USPS for this; yeah I know it sucks, and I know you paid a lot to have those mailed, but when the cost to send a normal letter across the country is less tha 50c, it's easy to see why they are not turning a profit. Add in the stupid government rule that makes them the only employer around that has to pre-fund 75 years worth of pensions.... yeah... I would not want to be the postmaster general, that's for sure. There are a lot of really good people working for USPS who genuinely want to see your mail get to you in one peice and it's not their fault that Americans won't tolerate an increase in postage or that the government hobbles them with the unfair pension pre-funding burden.
@fishbone: with all the cuts and closures, it's a wonder some of us still get the mail out at all. I feel like we are running @ bare bones
/threadjack
@fishbone: That's a great idea - thanks! It's a shame with what's going on with the postal service industry, considering how much people rely on having things sent to and from. The economy is really skewed in more ways than one.
@MissFireFlower: Do you know if non machineable mail takes longer to process?? I am totally freaking out! Please see my comment on this post:
Would really appreciate any thoughts/comments.
i'm so sorry that this happened to you. is this covered under wedding insurance perhaps?? Do you have it?
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Hey Bees,
I'm having like a MAJOR problem right now.
I sent out these beautiful invitations that came with 6' x 6' envelopes about 3 wks ago. My sister had warned me about square invites from day 1, telling me that they would be extra postage due to the shape and size of them.. that they would require hand-filing by employees at the post office. I couldn't help myself and just HAD to order these beautiful invitations - they were exactly what I wanted. Here's a pic below of a sample:
BUT... Now I'm having a few of these invites being sent back to me absolutely DESTROYED.. Like torn apart. Some of them looked to be shredded in half, with the front of the envelope being completely torn apart from the back. Others were successfully delivered to the address, but arrived in a Postal Service clear plastic bag that apologized for any damage to the mail, and that they strive to keep mail intact and yadda yadda yadda.. The one that got to my parents had the entire top of the envelope stripped open, almost like someone intentionally opened it with an envelope opener. I was pissed, but at least my guests received the invitations I was happy.
Now I'm starting to have people come out and tell me that they haven't even received their invitations yet. Three of these people are my co-workers. If 3 people out of the 14 that I work with didn't receive the invites, I'm worried about who else didn't receive one!! WTH??!! I don't even know who got an invite or not, and I really don't know how to approach this situation.
Did any fellow Bees have similar problems? Does anyone have any insight as to what may have happened? The only other things on the envelope were a stamp and a small flat sticker used to seal the back.
Also.. what on earth do I do now? There's still a good amount of people who haven't RSVPed yet...
Any advice would be greatly appreciated! I'm so frustrated :(