How to Mail Acrylic Quinceañera Invitations

So you’ve ordered your acrylic Quinceañera invites (from us, obviously 😉), received them in the mail, and are getting ready to send them out! How exciting! But how do you ship them safely, without the risk of breakage? 

While acrylic invitations and invitations with bows and charms are beautiful, they are delicate, and cannot be treated or mailed like you would a normal flat paper invitation. Acrylic, otherwise known as plexiglass, while engineered to be durable, can still break, or crack if mailed improperly, and the bows on your paper invites can be crushed. While we recommend handing out your invitations in person whenever possible, we recognize that shipping is often necessary to reach all of your guests!

So with that in mind, here are the 2 best ways to mail acrylic Quinceañera invitations:

Non-machinable stamps

For the first option, you can use non-machinable stamps. Non-machinable stamps ensure that your invitations are still mailed by letter mail, but are not processed through the regular letter mail machine. The regular letter mail machines are made for paper and paper only, and as such WILL bend (and thus break) your invitations. At the time of writing, non-machinable stamps are an additional $.44 surcharge on the top of regular postage.

The specific number of stamps required will depend on the weight of your invitation. We don't have one set number for the weight of YOUR invites, because different envelopes weigh more or less than others, any additional insert cards will add weight, and even the shape of your invite can make a difference. 

As such, we HIGHLY advise taking one of your invitations completely put together and sealed to the post office, have them weigh it and inform them that you need non-machinable stamps. They will be able to best advise you on which stamps you need and how many, as ultimately it is up to your local postmaster to determine the cost.

Parcel mail

The second option is to mail your invitations in bubble mailers as a package. Though this is the more expensive option, the bubble mailer will provide extra cushioning and security to your invitations. We would typically use 6" x 10" mailers (6 x 9 usable space). If you go this route, we HIGHLY recommend signing up for a free service such as www.pirateship.com, which will provide you significantly better rates than you will find at the post office!

Which option should I choose?

There are pros and cons to both. While the bubble mailer can provide extra padding to your invites, they will also be processed with other packages big and small, and you run the risk of big, heavy boxes being placed on top of your invites in transit. Sending with regular mail provides less padding to your invites, but they will be processed with other letter mail, so there is less that can damage them.

While you will see a variety of opinions on this, we would suggest sending them with letter mail using non-machinable stamps, as we have found it to be a safer (and more economical!) option.

 ** please note that these instructions also apply to any of our paper invites with ribbons and charms!