With an arbitrary system of weights and measures, Royal Mail has made inviting people to our wedding a whole lot more difficult. After posting our invites on Tuesday 7th July I felt really giddy - like the wedding was really happening. At first we received a steady stream of texts saying "LOVE THE INVITES" and swift RSVP's (Auntie Libuff - you win the award for quickest RSVP for the Brown wedding) lulling us into thinking that all our invites had been happily received.
Then I was made aware that a cousin in London hadn't received anything in the post. Then 2 friends. Then Rich's mum told Rich she'd had to pay extra postage for hers and had to collect it from the Post Office. Cringe. Extra postage?? Cripes we should've got them weighed before we posted them. That one is on us. But why oh why Royal Mail have you delivered some (postage was obviously fine) and not others? A few postcodes in London received their invites without issue, yet a postcode in Manchester has had to pay an extra £1.20 excess postage. I'm in awe of how arbitrary the system is, and how bureaucratic - each invite was 20p under postage but the admin fee for each to get delivered is £1. Talk about a self-serving industry.
As it stands today half the invites have been delivered no problems, a quarter have had to pay excess postage (sorry ladies and gents!) and a quarter are still missing in action with the recipients receiving no invite and no letter of excess postage. Now this is where Royal Mail have been no help - I can happily give them the addresses and postcodes of these missing invites to locate them, but they won't consider them missing until 27th July. The thing is, we need all our RSVP's by the 31st July.
I had a tiny glimmer of hope yesterday that the Royal Mail PR machine would swoop down and turn this thing around but alas my communication with them has been akin to communicating with an emotionless robot who has clearly never planned a wedding.
Luckily friends and family have been awesome and incredibly understanding - we've received texts saying:
"It's ok; we know when we aren't wanted *winky smiley*"
"I'm sure I can find a quid down the back of the sofa to pay the postage"
"I think it's bloody genius you've essentially made us pay for an invite to your wedding"
to one friend "refusing" to come unless we reimburse him the £1.20 excess postage he's had to pay (Ben - you'll be reimbursed at the wedding). Rich pointed out, as I had a little weep over the invite list last night, we're lucky to be in a close network with everyone reachable by phone and Facebook.
It seems this kind of pre-wedding mix up can happen to the best of us - just this morning at a networking event my friend Sarah said she'd managed to post a fistful of her wedding invitations without any stamps at all. Phew! Hearing that story made me giggle - I'm never been a bride for whom everything has to be "perfect" - so it's good to know that the path to a wedding can sometimes be bumpy.
So please taketh this lesson away from today's #WeddingWednesday blog post -
always weigh your wedding invites before you post them
It will save you a heck load of trouble and if they do go missing, don't expect Royal Mail to do anything for you.
Amen.
