Wedding Blog

Thank you notes. They have to be the most dreaded post-wedding task. (I hear you moaning and groaning right along with me.) I confess that I even gave some thought during the honeymoon in regards to how unappealing the job seemed. Even with the wedding a month behind us, I feel like I just finished writing thank you notes for the shower. Looking at the calendar, I had those finished over seven weeks ago, but, as I stare at the list of names on my wedding thank you list, it seems like it was just yesterday when I was writing notes to most of them in appreciation for the wonderful kitchen tools, bedding, towels and other gifts I was grateful to receive. And now, I have close to 100 notes to write, and I just have no motivation to check this task off of my to-do list.

Regardless, I need to get my butt in gear and get these hand-written messages of gratitude to the people who shared our day with us and/or were thoughtful enough to give us a gift. I really am thankful for all of the generosity, but just not so thrilled about the process of expressing all of that on paper.

Unfortunately for me, Mr. DE has the worst handwriting. I think he could probably do a better job if he put the pen in is toes and tried to write that way.

So, of course, this leaves the pressure of completing the written thanking on me. However, he has assisted me by typing up a few notes for me to write out by hand, which is a big help.

I had jury duty for two days last week and figured the time sitting around waiting could be used to get started on the thank yous. Even though it was hard to write on a book in my lap, I was able to crank out a few. The ones I did were some of the easy ones—the ones where people came to the wedding and gave us a gift. The verbiage was simple because I thanked them for coming and for their generosity, followed by a short note on how we should be closing on our first home soon or how we enjoyed our honeymoon. Easy, right?

But then, I got frustrated with some of the more difficult ones. I went to the library and I borrowed the book “Heartfelt Thank Yous: Perfect Ways for Brides to Say Thank You” by Beverly Clark. While helpful for some of the tough ones, it really didn’t have a section on one particular area I’m struggling with, so I thought I would turn to the hive to see how some of you handled it, if you found yourself in the same situation.

Here’s the deal: For a few of the thank yous, only one member of the invited party showed up to the wedding. There are also very generous gifts involved. How do you thank them both when you want to highlight how nice it was to see/meet the one person, but were sorry the other couldn’t make it? (Especially since, in one instance, I am under the understanding that marital strife was the reason for the absence.) It’s tricky wording here, people. I think I’d be walking some pretty thin ice no matter what. What would you do?

Ugh! I wish it was easier! What area are you struggling with while writing your thank you notes? How did you find the motivation to get them finished? Did you have any particular “sticky situations” regarding thank yous that you had to get around?