The Mailbox Reaction

I've had a couple encounters with a mailbox recently, something I never thought would be so...exciting? Heart pounding? Nerve racking? All of the above actually.

My first encounter with a mailbox occurred last week when I headed to Home Depot to buy light bulbs while Mr. Honey was out of town (seriously, I had 4 light bulbs go out the first week he was gone. What the?). As I stood staring at the enormous selection of light bulbs I thought I should take a look at the mailboxes. Why? Because I wanted something like this:

Image via Bridal Musings/Photo by Kreatid Photography

A mailbox to display at the reception for cards. I'm smitten with the "Up" inspired mailboxes like Mrs. Lioness and Mrs. Snowcone created, but we have actually never seen the movie (I really really want to though!), so it wouldn't really make sense. I also wanted to be able to use the mailbox post wedding, so I needed something a tad more practical. After picking out my light bulbs I was directed towards the mailboxes and was surprised to find them so reasonable, $17.99! Why I expected them to be more expensive, I don't know.

I had briefly mentioned this idea to Mr. Honey before he left, but I wanted to have this completed when he got home...I had the idea of having the mailbox sitting on our table with a love note inside, so when he got home he would have a note and simultaneously see just how darn cute the idea was; so I got to work.

I got a shiny white mailbox:

$17.99 from Home Depot

and pretty alphabet stickers:

$2.99 from Hobby Lobby

My biggest decision came down to if I wanted to go with Mr. & Mrs. Honey or The Honey's. Decisions, decisions. Mr. & Mrs. seemed to proper; so I went with The Honey's. I stuck the stickers on (I chose to go with all lower case letters) and wham bam I had an official mailbox.

It looks better without my horrible attempt at photo editing!

It's simple and sweet, and REAL. Woah. Seeing my future last name in stickers, as a plural, made me smile extra big; it was also the first moment that I got little butterflies in my stomach and really reinforced that there is going to be a marriage after the wedding. We will really be Mr. & Mrs.! I didn't get the love note in the mailbox before Mr. Honey returned, but I was okay with that because in a couple months, that mailbox is going to be filled with important (and not so important) things addressed to "the honey's".

Okay, okay so I took a mailbox and slapped some stickers on it, sure it wasn't the most exciting tutorial ever but the effect- a mailbox, made a helluva impression. A mere three days after completing this project, another mailbox made an impact. I headed to the real post office...to a real life mail box...with a box of stamped envelopes. Our invitations. I always go to the drive-by mail box, it's just easier than parking, and luckily I happened to be in the lane all.by.myself.

There I sat, thumbing through each envelope, like I was mentally making sure each of the 90-some envelopes were actually addressed, or making sure a flap wasn't coming undone. I dropped a stack of ten or so at a time, and my heart pounded as each stack got dropped into the abyss slot. I was not expecting this reaction, I was expecting a huge wave of relief.

Nobody told me how strange it is to drop your wedding invitations in the mail! I had put so much time and energy to making them, I felt a bit sad. On the other hand, mailing the invites means that the wedding is just around the corner, so that made me feel quite excited. Then there is the amount of people that will be looking at our invitations, and that made me a little nervous. I drove away (and not because the three cars behind me were honking), then the wave of relief hit me. I told Mr. Honey I had dropped them off and he asked how it went, I told him my thoughts and said "I kinda wanted to just kiss each one as I dropped it off". That sounds weird, but there was a whole lot of thought poured into those and there is a lot of significance tied to those pretty 'lil packages!

I've already received a couple texts from friends saying they got their invitation, so I will now be obsessive about checking our (soon to be replaced) mailbox for RSVP's. And you know what that means- I will soon be able to share them with the Hive!

How did you feel when you dropped your invitations in the mail? Has something that is usually pretty insignificant really made an impact on you while wedding planning?