Two Cents from a Pittsburgh Wedding Photographer: Addressing your wedding invitations

I’m not a Pittsburgh wedding planner, but as a photographer I do have some advice to share.  I learned a new tip from my local post office when I was mailing my Christmas cards the other day and I think it’s worth sharing, especially for anyone getting ready to send wedding invitations. The return address for cards and invitations should go on the front of any envelope at the upper left, just like it does for business mailings. This is contrary to what I was taught about how to address an envelope for friendly correspondence.

So when I went to the post office with my Christmas cards with the return addresses on the backs of the envelopes, a mail carrier told me that because the mail is sorted by machine nowadays, that it could mistake the return address on the back as the destination address and your carrier could deliver your mail right back to you. And that could be very frustrating with timely mailings. It seems odd that this could happen given that your mail carrier could just flip the envelope over and know what to do, but she told me that it has happened and is likely to happen more frequently in the future as mail carriers will be less and less likely to check individual pieces since the machine sorting has changed the way they work.

After a few quick searches online, I didn’t find anything to back this up, but I think it’s worth changing how I address any friendly correspondence in the future. I already had my Christmas cards addressed when I dropped them off and so far none of them have come back to me. I can only imagine how frustrating that might be if they did – especially since I waited until the week before Christmas to send them. Anyway, as a wedding and portrait photographer in Pittsburgh, I figured I should share this in hopes that I can save someone out there from that frustration.

‘Tis the season for engagements and if you’re hoping for a ring and you’re anything like me, you probably already have an idea of what you’d like your wedding to be like. After my husband proposed, I was checking venues for dates within a week. Now that I’ve been in the wedding photography business for a few years, I’ve seen a lot of things that have worked really well and others that haven’t. If I could go back and change something about how I planned my wedding, my biggest regret is not hiring a wedding planner, but that’s a post for another day. In the next week, I’ll be looking though weddings over the past year and compiling a list of great ideas to share. So stay tuned!