Hand cancelling your own invitations at the post office
"what is hand cancelling, and why should i THINK ABOUT havING it done?"
Each stamp needs to be “Cancelled” so that it cannot be peeled off and used again (USPS Protocol). Hand cancelling usually ensures that your envelopes are handled with care at your home post office, and cancelled without being run through a large cancelling machine.
Please note that many post offices no longer offer hand cancelling as the reality is that once your envelopes get dropped at the post office, they are entirely out of your hands and will likely be run through a machine somewhere along the journey, regardless of whether they were hand cancelled up front. That said, sometimes it’s just best to drop them in the normal mail receptacle.
The one major recommendation we have here is to confirm that if they are going to hand cancel them, that they don’t use a marker to do it - they should be using a rubber stamp. This is a good question to ask as sadly, we’ve seen this happen more than once.