Response Envelopes

After you spend time creating your own invitations, you want to ensure they arrive at your guests homes looking as great as they did leaving yours. So how do you guarantee your invitations will arrive in great condition? Next to hand delivery, your best bet for protecting your invitations against the potential rigors of mailing - marking, bending, and tearing - is to request that your invitations are hand canceled.

What does "hand cancel" mean?

Cancellation refers to the markings that the postal service puts on stamped mail to prevent the stamps from being re-used; in current times, this marking is typically created by automated high speed machinery, and most often is a large, red, rectangular stamp. While these machines are quick and convenient, mail that goes through them run the risk of being bent, marked up, and even torn - risks you do not want to take with formal invitations.

Hand canceling, as the names implies, means that each invitation will be post marked by hand, not machinery, thus eliminating the aforementioned risk factors - and the aforementioned unattractive red stamp.

How do I get my invitations hand canceled?

After completing your invitations, bring your finished ensemble into your local post office and simply request that they are hand canceled. Most (not all) post offices will have no problem with this, as it is common practice with formal mail. Depending on your local branch, be prepared to be asked to stamp your own invitations, or told that they can be hand canceled on another day.

Additional tips for safe invitation arrival

Always check with your local post office about the cost of postage prior to mailing. Keep in mind that square invitation envelopes will cost more to send, and mail that weighs over one ounce will also have a surcharge. So check fist and eliminate the Return to Sender stamped across your invitation envelopes.

Consider sending a test invitation to yourself and/or a friend or relative who lives far away. Simply bring a finished ensemble to the post office, determine the appropriate postage, request that it is hand canceled, and see how it arrives. Of course if it arrives safely and free or markings, bends, or tears, you can feel more confident in sending the rest out to your guests.

Our goal is to help you create affordable, professional looking invitations using your home computer and printer. To help you achieve this goal, we offer products that are designed to be printed by you; each accompanied by free printing instructions, a product specific Word template, and helpful customer service. If you wish to print on your envelopes, we will help you every step of the way - making hand writing or calligraphy on your envelopes a choice, not a necessity.

Printing Note - Envelope finish & texture may affect printing

Please note that various textures and finishes found on envelopes may not be compatible with your laser or inkjet printer. For example, if you are printing on heavily textured envelopes you will get the best results with an inkjet printer, where a laser printer will produce the best results on envelopes with a metallic finish.

If you do not have the proper equipment to print on the envelopes you have chosen, you may not be able to achieve the crisp, professional appearance you are after. For best results, please view the printer recommendations found below your envelope's image. We also recommend you consult your printer's documentation, as well as order a sample envelope to run a trial print on. This way you can determine whether your printer will work with the envelope you have chosen.

Check Your Printer Manual.

The first stop should be your printer manual. Find the section on printing envelopes and follow your manufacturer's instructions.

Envelope Printing Requires Testing.

Printing envelopes on a particular printer always requires testing. What might be the best loading technique for one printer model might not be best for another. Plan to print several tests before you find the perfect loading technique for your printer.

A few quick points: You do not need to open the envelope flap before printing. Keeping the flap closed will help the envelope to run through the printer smoothly, and will have less of a chance of getting caught. Keep in mind that lined envelopes may be too thick for certain printers. The best practice is to order a sample envelope to test it on your printer.

Envelope Face Up Or Face Down?

If you are printing addresses on the front of the envelope, load the envelope front side up. If you are printing on the envelope flap, load the envelope flap side down.

Envelope Orientation In The Printer: Left, Right Or Bottom?

In our testing, we have found that turning the envelope on its side--with the flap on the left side--is the best loading scenario for printing success. Since the envelope is rotated 90 degrees, both the document template and the printer driver orientation setting should be set to Landscape as opposed to the typical Portrait orientation. Otherwise, the text will not be properly oriented on the envelope.

If the flap on the left doesn't work with your printer, try to load the envelope with the flap feeding directly into the printer. If your printer is a front loading model, the flap would be on top.

If your printer is a top loading model, the flap would be at the bottom

Quick Tip To Avoid Wasting Envelopes

Within the document template, change your ink color to a very light shade of gray. By slightly darkening the ink color with every envelope test print, you can run the same envelope through the printer several times.

How many envelopes should I load at once?

Some printers can print 10 or 20 envelopes loaded into the paper tray at a time, while others can only print one at a time. Check you printer's manual and test to find the best method.

When using two envelopes, there is no etiquette rule that dictates that you have to line your inner envelope. However liners do add elegance as well as help to color coordinate your invitation package therefore many people choose to have their inner envelope lined.

Not only can colored envelopes be mailed as easily as a traditional envelope they are a great way to help your pieces stand out from other mailings. When choosing to use a colored envelope for your project, you need to keep in mind addressing it in a way that both your recipient and the postal service can read. Here are a few options on how to address darker envelope papers.

• use labels
• colored gel pens
• metallic pens

If you are having your invitations professionally printed, you should discuss print color options with your printer or calligrapher in advance

When printing your own envelopes, you do not need to open the flap before printing. The Word templates we provide for all of our envelopes are designed to be used with the flap closed. In addition, keeping the flap closed will help the envelope to run through the printer smoothly, and will have less of a chance of getting caught.

As with most traditional wedding invitations if you are including two envelopes, then etiquette suggests using an envelope liner on the inner envelope, not the outer. The inner envelope is considered to be the real envelope. The outer envelope serves to protect the invitation ensemble from the rigors of mail delivery and postal markings.

Centuries ago Wedding invitations were traditionally hand delivered, with an outer envelope and inner envelope. It was then anothers job to remove the outer envelope and hand deliver the inner envelope to the appropriate family members. Although most invitations are no longer delivered in this manner, the tradition of leaving the inner envelope unsealed so that it is easily accessible remains. Therefore when you order the double wedding envelope set, the inner envelope from the set is un-gummed.

Take a moment to watch this video to learn what exactly are double wedding envelopes

First, the total number of guests does not equate to the number of wedding envelopes needed. The number of envelopes needed for your event is typically half of the guest list plus a percentage for those who are invited as single guests (not couples). To allow for mistakes in addressing or those last minute additions to your guest list you should plan on ordering at least 25 extra envelopes.

Also keep in mind we strongly suggest having the post office hand cancel the invitation envelopes, it can help protect them from the rigors of the automated sorting equipment

At LCI we use these terms somewhat interchangeably, and all three refer to standard response envelope and card sizes. However a standard European size of 8 1/4 x 11 3/4 inches (210 x 297 millimeters) is also commonly referred to as A4. Another little twist is that 4 Bar can also refer to a pointed flap shape of the response envelope. On the LCI Paper site we will indicate the flap shapes, square flap, pointed flap or European flap independent of the size.