The USPS Lost All but 3 of This Couple's Wedding Invitations, the Bride-to-Be Says

Creating and mailing your wedding invitations is an integral part of the planning process: While the design introduces guests to your aesthetic, the content itself informs friends and family about the time and place of your nuptials. In order for your loved ones to actually show up to your ceremony, the invitations need to make it to their mailboxes. For Gillian Shea, a Massachusetts resident, that wasn’t the case. Shea told Boston news channel WCVB-TV on November 2, 2023 that the United States Postal Service lost 82 of her 85 wedding invitations.

Shea explained that she sent out her wedding invitations back in August 2023 to make sure they arrived on time. The bride-to-be went to Roslindale Post Office in Boston to mail them, and she even weighed them before sending them to ensure that she applied the correct postage. “The fact that they just seemed to have vanished into thin air is pretty frustrating,” she admitted. “It’ll make for a fun story I guess, but right now, it doesn’t feel so fun.”

After realizing that a majority of her wedding invitations were lost in the mail, Shea filed a claim. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been any progress in the case of the missing invites. A Postal Service representative told NewsCenter 5 that they don’t have a mechanism to track first-class mail, so there’s no promise of a resolution. “The overall answer was, ‘We have no idea. Your guess is as good as ours,’” the future bride recounted. 

Although the USPS lost 96 percent of the couple’s invitations, three of them did make it to their respective guests’ mailboxes. WCVB-TV reports that one turned up in Scituate, Massachusetts, another arrived on Long Island, and the third showed up in Upstate New York. However, Shea noted that there wasn’t any pattern that made those particular deliveries a success. 

This dilemma also caused Shea and her partner to lose a significant amount of money. The bride-to-be said the missing invitations cost $500, and then, they had to spend more money on an electronic version, which put another dent in their wallets. Even though most of Shea’s friends and family received a digital iteration of the paper card due to the dilemma, Shea has one last copy of her wedding invitation. “We’re going to keep it for a whole memento of what never happened, I guess,” she said.

Though invitation misplacement and delivery delays are almost always out of your hands, there are a few things you can do to minimize the risk of this happening to you. Start by making sure your guests' names and addresses are correct and legible; old-world calligraphy is stunning, but the more difficult it is to read, the more likely it is that someone, somewhere will make a mistake with routing. It's just as important to weigh your suites to determine the required postage; this prevents bounce-backs (which only increase the potentiality of a misplacement). For more ways to ensure all of your wedding invitations arrive to their intended destination, check out our comprehensive guide on invitation postage tips and best practices.