Any Minute Now....

Any minute now someone will be opening their mailbox, (not their e-mail box either, their real live mail box) and they will see this:

Of course the stamps will be canceled and the address won't be blurred out (I hope!).

 In case you cannot tell, this is a super-secret-bees-only-sneak-peak at our invitations!  (Full pictures and how-to coming soon!)

A few nights ago we finally got around to linkin' & stickin' all those bad boys and got them in the mail before the prices went up. (Just barely)

I wish I could say that I was one of those people who didn't care about stamps at all. I wish I could say that, or say that I obsessively searched out the perfect postage to go with our theme....But really I was kind of in the middle on this.

Mr. Aardvark and I work in different towns. One day after the envelopes had been stuffed but before we purchased stamps, we each took an invite to the local post office to have them weighed and measured. That's right,  I was so worried about proper postage I made sure to double check. After all, I had an odd shape (square) and lots of paper and pretties inside and new callouses on my hand from addressing them I didn't want to see any return to sender due to wrong postage (or for any reason!).

Lucky for us, both post offices told us our invites would need $0.84 to mail. Even more lucky for us there is an $0.84 stamp. Sad for us, the stamp was ugly.

A solution presented itself after minimal searching. Instead of an $0.84 stamp we would get a $0.80 and a $0.04. Both of those were much more appealing and even had some personal importance! The $0.80 stamp is Voyageurs National park. It's a beautiful wilderness in Northern Minnesota. Both Mr. Aardvark and I have been there (though not together(yet)) and Mr. A grew up in Minnesota so it seemed perfect! The $0.04 stamp was a chair....well, we both sit in chairs from time to time. Clearly, a lot of meaning behind that one too.

With our stamps picked and our envelopes licked, it was time to go to the post office. Because we had a huge box of invites, and it was freezing cold, we drove the three blocks to the post-drop.  Mr. Aardvark put the first ones in!

And then, because I am a crazy person, I made him turn around and go the wrong way down the one way "mail drop lane" so that I could put some in through the passenger window. To be fair it was late and no one else was trying to drop off mail. AND how often do you get to put wedding invitations in a mailbox? Not often at all!

After they were gone and we got back home I was hit with a very new, strange emotion. I'll call it relief-worry. I was so glad they were done and so excited for people to get them but so nervous that they would get lost or damaged or broken or that we had forgotten to glue in the actual "You're Invited" part (crazy right?). I imagine it was something like a parent feels watching their child leave for college. You worked so hard, and now, they are off to make their own way in the world.(Maybe a bit over-dramatic) They also made the wedding seem very real. Very SOON. And any minute now some of our guests will be feeling a little bit of that excitement too.

Who knew dropping something in a mailbox could evoke such feelings?

Have you mailed out your invitations yet? How did you feel?