The Best Stamps for Wedding Invitations In 2025 – A Complete Guide
Choosing the right postage for your wedding invitations isn’t just about making sure they reach your guests – it’s about creating that perfect first impression when your invitations arrive in the mail. As a professional stationery designer, I’ve helped hundreds of couples navigate the world of wedding postage, and I’m sharing my favorite stamp options for 2025. I’ll also dive into expert tips on where to source them safely, as well as common questions like how many stamps do you need to buy for invitations versus save the dates.
Let’s start with the basics:
How Many Stamps to Use For a Wedding Invitation
You’ll need either one two-ounce stamp or two Forever stamps for typical wedding invitations. Most wedding invitation suites weigh just over one ounce, making a single Forever stamp insufficient. While using a two-ounce stamp is more cost-effective, using two Forever stamps gives you more design options for creating an aesthetically pleasing arrangement on your envelopes.
If you’re only sending a single thickness invitation with no additional pieces of paper – so no details card, no rsvp card, no rsvp envelope, no ribbon or wax seals, etc. – then you may be able to get a way with a single Forever stamp on your invitation. So if you were considering keeping things simple, saving money on postage is another reason to only go with a 1 piece invitation suite.
Ultimately, the only way to be sure how much postage you’ll need is to consult your local post office. Take a completed suite to the counter and ask them to weigh it and let you know how much postage you need.
What Stamps to Use for Save the Dates
Your standard save the date, e.g. one piece of single thick paper sized 5×7″ or less, usually weighs under 1 oz. One Forever stamp is typically sufficient unless your design is particularly heavy or irregularly shaped. For detailed information about specific weights and sizes, check out our Ultimate Wedding Postage Guide or the USPS guidelines for mailing a letter.
Things that might cause your save the date to need more postage? A square shape, wax seal, ribbon, double thick paper, extra large size, or a non-paper material like a magnet. Learn more about wax seal considerations here.
The only way to be sure what postage you’ll need is to take one to the post office and ask behind the counter for them to confirm.
Current Stamp Recommendations for 2025
Now that you know how many you need, let’s get to the fun part. Here are some of my favorite stamps for your wedding invitations in 2025. These are currently in circulation at USPS.com.
The Wedding Blooms stamp
This 2 oz stamp is perfect for your wedding invitations, not only in name, but also in value. Since it’s a 2 oz stamp, it is capable of mailing most wedding invitations which typically weigh in just over an ounce. This usually makes it too heavy for a Forever stamp alone. So using a 2 oz stamp is usually sufficient. And it’s more affordable than the alternative – using 2 Forever stamps – which is typically what I recommend for couples who opt not to use the 2 oz stamp.
Aside from its practicality, the Wedding Blooms stamps is really pretty! It features a brightly-colored bouquet of flowers in purple, magenta, yellow, and pink that goes with a lot of wedding themes. If the Wedding Blooms stamp isn’t quite your aesthetic, here are some other options you might like.
The Love 2024 Stamps
I love this bright red option that features a graphic of a dove delivering some romantic mail. It’s fun, colorful and goes really well with a lot of envelope colors – like white, new blue, vermillion, and mid green. I love the pop against new blue especially.
As I mentioned earlier, most wedding invitations will require more than one Forever stamp to mail. So I usually recommend using two Forever stamps.
Tulip Blossoms
I also really love Tulip Blossoms as a classic option. It features a realistic photo depiction of 10 different Tulip bulbs ranging in color from pink, to purple, to red and yellow. I think this option is particularly suited to Spring weddings.
Tulip Blossoms is a multiple stamp design, featuring multiple designs per book of stamps. It’s not possible to purchase the designs individually so you’ll need to be okay with some variation from envelope to envelope unless you’re willing to pay a premium and separate the stamps yourself and use the rest of the designs for another purpose.
There are 74 Forever stamps currently in circulation right now at USPS.com so you can mix and match to your heart’s content. Some of the non-traditionally romantic ones might work really well for your wedding. Getting married on the Fourth of July? The classic US Flag stamps are perfect, actually! Big DND fans? They’ve got you covered there too! Getting married in the Fall or close to the Winter holidays? There are quite a few seasonal options that would align perfectly.
Future Stamp Options from the USPS – What’s Launching in 2025 and Beyond
The post office does change up their stamp offerings every year. They release new designs each year and may retire some of the older designs. While a lot of my favorite designs stick around for multiple years, they do occasionally retire some that I loved. Last year, we used a lot of this Tulip stamp for example that I adored.
You can see the full rollout plan for 2025 and what stamps are coming out throughout the year directly on the USPS website. For example, they just announced that in 2025 they’ll be launching SpongeBob SquarePants and Goodnight Moon themed stamps. How cute!
Here are the other stamps they’ll be launching throughout the first quarter of 2025. I’m especially excited about the 2025 Love stamp featuring artwork by Keith Haring, the new International stamp featuring a compass (long overdue!) and the Dahlias collection of stamps. The Dahlia collection doesn’t have a launch date yet but I know it will be a popular one for later 2025 and 2026 weddings.
| Stamps | Release Date |
|---|---|
| Lunar New Year • Year of the Snake | Jan. 14 |
| Love 2025 (Keith Haring) | Jan. 17 |
| Spiral Galaxy (Priority Mail) | Jan. 21 |
| Star Cluster (Priority Mail Express) | Jan. 21 |
| 1794 Compass Rose (Global) | Jan. 24 |
| Allen Toussaint (Black Heritage) | Jan. 30 |
| American Vistas (Presorted Standard) | Feb. 21 |
| The Appalachian Trail | Feb. 28 |
| Freshwater Fishing Lures | March 13 |
| Vibrant Leaves (Postcard Rate) | March 14 |
| Betty White | March 27 |
Can I Use Out of Circulation Stamps?
There are also some great options from past years that are no longer in circulation (aka sold directly by the Post Office or on their website) but are still available for use. You can find them at retail locations like Staples, for example, or from trusted vintage stamp purveyors. Fun fact – Forever stamps hold their value forever! So if you need 2 Forever stamps for your wedding invitations, you can use any Forever stamps even if they are 5, 10, or more year’s old. They retain their value.
The most important thing to consider when using out of circulation stamps is getting them from a reputable source. You’ll want to purchase them from a trusted retailer or vintage stamp purveyor. I will get into the sources I don’t trust and why later in this article. But here are my favorite places to source vintage stamps that I know aren’t selling fake stamps.
When using Vintage stamps, you’ll also want to balance out the face value of the stamp with the cost to purchase the stamp. I get into more detail on this in my guide to vintage stamps. But essentially, the value of older stamps doesn’t always match up with the price. And the price per stamp is usually more than they are worth to the Post Office as currency since they are rarer and harder to find. That means you will be paying a premium to use vintage stamps versus stamps that are currently in circulation.
Flourish Fine Writing
Flourish Fine Writing offers a lot of color-themed curated collections in neutral colorways like a set of blush stamps, or creams and neutral tans. You’ll want to pick a set that’s at least $1.19 in face value in my experience for wedding invitations. But you can also pair a lower value collection with a current Forever stamp to get the look of the vintage set you want and cover off on the correct amount of postage.
You can check out her collections that are directly available for sale here. She also has a number of one off stamps you can purchase to build your own curated set or add to a Forever stamp. You can shop by color, theme, or face value.
Little Postage House
Little Postage House is another favorite of mine. She sells curated sets and individual stamps sorted by theme or color.
One of my favorites right now is a collection called Spring Time. You’ll need to add an extra stamp for most wedding invitations but this set is perfect as is for save the dates.
Can I Buy My Wedding Stamps on Amazon?
I get this question a lot and the answer is unfortunately, no. I don’t trust Amazon for stamps. There are too many counterfeit, overseas sellers selling fake stamps at a discount to make it worth it.
If you see stamps for a discount or on sale from the list price (which is $0.73 per Forever stamp as of October 2024)
they are most definitely counterfeit. Unlike other products, you can’t buy stamps for less than the retail price from the
government so there’s no way for a business to make money selling stamps for a discount. The only reason to
discount them is if they printed them off unauthorized in China, which is illegal. Unfortunately Amazon has been flooded with counterfeit stamps these days from China.
Most of the time, sending a letter with a counterfeit stamp won’t get caught. But, here’s why you shouldn’t risk it. If
your stamps are suspected of being fake, the post office will DESTROY the mail and stamps. So all it takes is one post
office employee to know something is counterfeit to ruin your mailing. It’s just not worth risking the hundreds or
thousands you spent on nice invitations to save $5 on stamps.
Can I Buy My Wedding Stamps on Walmart?
I do still occasionally buy stamps from Walmart. I would say that their options are more likely to be from third-party sellers with dubious addresses and accountability information. Generally, if the stamps are being sold for more than face value (You can learn more about the face value versus the price of vintage stamps in this article all about vintage stamps.) aka not at a discount, then you’re likely okay.
I have started to look elsewhere in 2025 since it’s not worth the risk to me or my clients in buying stamps from untrusted sources on Walmart. If I know the source seller, then I still feel comfortable buying from them on Walmart.com. So if you’re a former client of mine who purchased stamps from Walmart, don’t panic! I knew the seller was legitimate before purchasing. But I’m not recommending Walmart for future couples.
Can I Buy My Wedding Stamps on Etsy?
Etsy has the same issue Walmart and Amazon have in my opinion, which is that you don’t know the seller and whether they are a trusted stamp collector, or just someone trying to make a quick buck by marking up the price of stickers. Even sellers with thousands of positive reviews I would still be wary of. Because like I mentioned earlier, the fake stamps are just so good, it’s hard to get caught. That doesn’t mean I recommend risking your mailing with counterfeit stamps.
There are a handful of trusted sellers on the platform that I personally work with on their own websites or on Etsy that I can recommend. Little Postage House is my go-to.
Can I Buy My Wedding Stamps on Ebay?
Ebay is also a place where I would caution buying stamps from. There happen to be a lot of reputable stamp collectors on the platform because Ebay is a place where collectors of vintage items like to buy and sell. So it has fewer people trying to sell fake options. I would only buy stamps from Ebay if I couldn’t find the options I wanted elsewhere, and the seller was selling stamps for more than face value (no discounts!) and had a shop full of vintage stamp options signaling that they were clearly a collector. I would also check to see if their company has a website and a physical address location listed.
Do I need a Non-machinable Stamp?
Generally a non-machinable stamp is used to pay for special handling by the Post Office. If your letter can’t go through the sorting machines, your Post Office worker may ask you to add this on. But they ultimately just care about the value of postage you have on your envelope so if you already have enough postage to cover hand canceling, then you may not need this stamp.
You may or may not need a non-machinable stamp from your post office. Unfortunately, the USPS is not super consistent on this. The non-machinable stamp does indicate to the post office that you have paid for hand canceling but it doesn’t guarantee that your mailing will be hand cancelled at every stop along the way to its destination.
You’ll likely need a non-machinable stamp if your invitation meets any of these criteria:
- Square-shaped envelope
- Contains a wax seal on the outer envelope (not recommended!)
- Is rigid or lumpy (also not recommended by me!)
- Is thicker than 1/4 inch or is rigid
My local post office never requires me to add this stamp to be honest with you. I always am able to ask them to hand cancel without an additional fee. Your post office may require something different so if your invitation meets any of the criteria above, it’s best to ask before you mail.
Do I need an Extra-Ounce Stamp?
Extra-ounce stamps are needed when your invitation weighs more than one ounce but less than two ounces. Since that usuallty combining a Forever stamp with an extra-ounce stamp, I typically recommend either using a two-ounce stamp or two Forever stamps for simplicity and aesthetic purposes.
Can I Buy My Wedding Stamps At the Post Office?
Yes, you can purchase stamps at your local post office, but be aware that their selection may be limited. For example, my local post office typically only carries flag stamps. For the widest selection of current designs, I recommend shopping directly on USPS.com.
What Stamps Should I Use for International Wedding Invitations?
The USPS offers Global Forever stamps for international mail and they are just over $1 in price. Until recently, there were only two options for these stamps – African Daisy and Poinsettia. They have launched a new option for 2025 that’s a Rose Compass. I think it’s very pretty!
I have started to recommend against using standard postal service for international wedding invitations. International mail can face significant delays – we’re talking weeks or even months. For example, the recent postal strike in Canada in late 2024 delayed mail for over six weeks, causing major headaches for couples with time-sensitive invitations.
Instead, consider these more reliable alternatives:
- Ship via DHL or UPS international for guaranteed delivery times
- Mail invitations to a relative or friend in the destination country who can distribute them locally
- Send digital invitations to international guests along with the physical ones in case they don’t receive them on time
- Use other tracked shipping services that provide delivery confirmation
Where Can I Find Cheap Wedding Stamps?
Here’s the truth about wedding stamp pricing: legitimate postage stamps don’t go on sale. If you see stamps being sold at a discount, particularly on Amazon or other third-party marketplaces, they’re almost certainly counterfeit. The face value of a Forever stamp is set by the USPS, and legitimate sellers cannot offer them below this price.
While it might be tempting to save money on postage, using counterfeit stamps puts your entire mailing at risk. If discovered, the post office will destroy both the stamps and your invitations – a far more expensive outcome than paying full price for legitimate postage.
Instead of looking for discounts, consider these cost-effective approaches:
- Use two-ounce stamps instead of 2x Forever stamps, like I mentioned above, when possible
- Choose simpler invitation designs that weigh less
- Buy stamps directly from USPS.com or authorized retailers in advance so you don’t need to pay extra for rush shipping
- Use an online RSVP method instead of mail back to save money on the return postage
Can I Track My Wedding Invitations After They Are Mailed?
If you mail your wedding invitations using stamps, it’s considered First Class mail, and therefore it is not trackable. If you’d like to be able to track your invitations
yes, use a cello sleeve with a ground or priority mailing label on the back or package invitations in a box with a ground or priority mailing label
Can I Create My Own Custom Stamp?
Unfortunately, custom stamps are no longer available through the USPS. The Photo Stamps program, which allowed customers to create custom postage using their own images, was discontinued in 2020. While there are some websites that still advertise custom stamps, these are not valid for postage and cannot be used to mail your invitations.
Final Tips for Wedding Invitation Postage
Now that you’re up to speed on everything postage for your wedding invitations, here’s a quick recap of what to do to ensure a flawless mailing.
- Always have one complete invitation suite weighed at the post office before sending out
- Order extra stamps to account for any last-minute additions or to avoid the USPS adding an ugly printed label
- Consider hand-canceling for your invitations even if it’s not required
- Keep tracking numbers organized if using tracked shipping
- Mail a test invitation to yourself first if you have enough time
Looking for more advice on mailing your wedding invitations? Check out these helpful articles:
- Mail with Confidence: The Ultimate Wedding Postage Guide
- 5 Things You Shouldn’t Do When Mailing Out Your Wedding Invitations
- Why You Shouldn’t Mail Wax Seals on Your Wedding Invitations
Ready to create the perfect invitation suite with just the right postage? Contact us to discuss your vision and ensure your invitations make the perfect first impression.
