Shipping wedding attire...Urgent, please help if experienced in shipping to Europe

I would use Fed X. Allow plenty of time for mailing and poss misdelivery or worse.
Usps, is not the best but if u must got to a postoffice and send from there.

Take it to a FexEx/Staples type place where they are familiar with the process. It would be worth a few extra dollars.

Although, I doubt I'll be the only one to suggest that you hand-carry these items. What will happen if they don't arrive on time, or don't arrive at all?

If you ship by USPS, the box then goes to the postal service in the destination country. Two different government agencies are responsible, in two different countries. If you ship by FedEx, UPS, or DHL, they'll be responsible from shipment to delivery. That's a better option.

I'd take all the paperwork to a busy USPS branch, ideally in a business district where they've dealt with international click and ship mailings before. They should know exactly what needs to be done.
Unfortunately, I don't have any personal experience with what you're trying to do.

I assume you are aware that there's a possibility you're going to run into issues with import duty.

Yes, please hand carry these things if at all possible. A couple of years ago, I had to travel to Switzerland from New York for business and then had to go straight from Switzerland to California for a formal 50th birthday party. I mailed my clothes for the event and the gift to California because I did not want to carry that stuff to Switzerland only to have to bring it to California and guess what happened. Luckily, it was Los Angeles so shopping for the replacements was possible but even in LA, it was a major pain to have to find a formal dress and a gift in one day. And needless to say, I did not like the dress or the gift that I bought at the last minute as much as I liked the items that I had before. If you can't hand carry the items then at least send them via FedEx or UPS or DHL. USPS never found my package and it was sent with tracking and sadly (dumb decision on my part in hindsight) insufficient insurance.

Following up on the import duty issue also, I don't know when in the three weeks the wedding will happen but your package might end up being held in customs for longer than you expect. I'm probably jinxed but that has happened to me and that was a royal pain.

For international shipping I always use FedEx, UPS, or DHL. I have first-hand knowledge of FedEx losing a package (in Memphis, no less), and what they can do to retrieve it (they did). Make sure your name and destination address are inside the box as well as on the shipping label.

The company I rep in Italy uses UPS for international and DHL in the EU-never the postal service internationally!

I am now properly terrified. ;)

Thank you so much for all your inputs. I will reconsider my approach!

Melissa

Melissa

Does the wedding couple live in Europe? I ask, because if they do not, you are making lots of work for yourself to ship/carry the gift there and then burden them with getting to where ever they live.

If the wedding is in the early part of your trip, perhaps pack your wedding duds with you and ship them home after the wedding? Or can you store the wedding clothes somewhere and take it home as checked luggage at the end of the trip.? The cost of a checked bag may be less than shipping via FEDEX, DHL, etc.

Hi Joe,

Yes, the couple resides in Europe and it's at the very end of our 3 week trip where we start very far from where we end up. Everyone has such great ideas, most of which I considered, but it's nice to have the consensus that i's a tough problem to solve when packing light!

Thanks all!

Any body else coming from the U.S. for the wedding who might bring s bag for you? Key of course is they must tell security personnel its THEir bag without any cute vacilation

Are you sure you can't distribute between you all? Other options to consider is take it and ship the gift upon arrival, or ship all upon arrival. Still some risk but at least in same continent.

Ship the gift directly to the couple before you leave. That way, you at least have less to get into your luggage.

We had to transport wedding clothes to a French wedding in 2016. A dress, scarf and sandals didn't take up much room in the bottom of a suitcase. My husband took more attire since he needed a sports coat and dressy shoes. We managed with one 24" and one 21" suitcase. We traveled for 2 weeks before the wedding and 3 weeks after in different countries. We brought a casual, hand hammered silver tray (flat and packable) as a wedding gift. We only discarded one thing, the sports coat after the wedding day. We got dressed up a couple of times for dinner because we had nicer clothes with us. It was a fun way and reason to travel. Best of luck sorting out your packing/shipping decisions.

Hi Melissa

At this point it seems you need to have a face to face with USPS to have them explain or sort out how the paperwork needs to be done to get your stuff to its destination

Sometimes the 'brick n mortar' approach is better than 'clicking'