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I admit it: I’m a bit of a stickler about sending thank you notes. It’s not that I’m an etiquette freak or anything—okay, maybe I am a little bit—but I think it’s super-important to acknowledge someone’s generosity as soon as I benefit from it. I guess I view most etiquette rules as “guidelines”—they are always safe to follow, but it’s okay to sometimes bend them if it seems appropriate to your situation. But on the issue of thank you notes, there is no bending for me!
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“Emily Post” tells me that thank you notes should be written within three months of receiving a gift, and who am I to argue? Mr. Spaniel and I are determined to stay within this time frame, but do you know what falls about six weeks after our wedding? Graduation, preceded by the two week final exam period (my last! ever!) and followed by frantic studying for the Bar exam. There is no way we are going to delay writing our thank you notes for three months! So, although I love (love) the idea of a photo thank you card from the wedding, we won’t be able to wait for our photographer to get back images to us to get these babies printed, written and mailed. So, we’re making them now!
Similar to our international RSVP inserts, I used the PDF proof from the existing stationery to create our thank you cards. (I’ve gotten a lot of mileage out of those proofs!)
Nope, not our names!
To simplify the process (and because I couldn’t find the 4-Bar size envelopes that I wanted at Staples, just the ones that fit a sheet of letter paper folded into quarters!), I created another 1/4 sheet design—this time, I remembered to account for the margin printing problems!—and then doubled the canvas size in Photoshop to create a folding card template. I then placed two of the designs side by side, printed and cut, then used a bone folder to crease the cards in the middle for a nice, smooth fold.
Sixty pages and 120 thank you cards later, voilà! Finished thank you cards, all ready to be written during our honeymoon! They might not be as cute as the photo cards, but at least they’re still personalized, they’ll inform people of my new married name, and we’ll be able to reuse any extras for other occasions.
How will you thank your guests? If you’re married, how many weeks (months?) after the wedding did you mail out your thank you cards?
It’s great that you got a head start on this! My husband and I were moving a month after our wedding so we didn’t have time to waste either. Even though we were still living there for over a month, we were living at his parents house for part of the time and it would have been too much to keep track of which cards had and hadn’t been sent by then.
Did you ever see the episode of The Office where Dwight and Andy have to keep one-upping each other on favors? If one pulls out the others chair, the other will open a door for the former. If one says thank you, the other says, no, thank you. It’s hilarious. It’s the proverbial black hole of etiquette. Nice job staying on top of it.
@Mrs. Cowboy Boot: I loved that episode.
Spaniel I’m so impressed you’ve already got your Thank You cards ready! I’m hoping to get ours ready before the wedding too, but I admit it might get thrown by the wayside in the last minute scramble if I don’t get on them soon!
You’re amazing, and I hope I have time to get this done before our wedding. Great idea all around. 
P.S. I’m a “thank you note” kinda gal too. I try to do them ASAP, even if they are just on my standard initial stationary.
wow–talk about being on the ball! you put us to shame, spaniel, to shame.
@MissAsB: That’s an advantage I didn’t even think of. Keeping everything straight!
@Mrs. Cowboy Boot: I never saw it! I need to Netflix some Office seasons, stat.
@Miss Guinea Pig: I might have been less on top of it, but I’ve already received two gifts! I’d feel terrible if I waited until March or April to thank them properly. 
@elisterine: Thanks!
@Miss Scissors: You can do it! If you don’t overwhelm yourself with all of your other awesome projects, that is.
@Miss Pug: Oh whatever, Miss Calligraphied the Addresses on Her Save the Dates. 
We got married on Novemer 7 and our goal is to have all the thank you notes mailed in 2009. I have a feeling we will be putting a lot in the mail on December 31, but that is ok. We write about 6-9 a day and I finished notes for 3 showers and a bachelorette party plus 20 gifts pre-wedding.
I just bought the cheap $1.25 thank you notes at Target though since we are sending out Christmas cards. My husband just lost his job so we really don’t have the money to be super creative.
You impress me so!!!!! I wish I would have planned my creativity ahead because I had so many ideas.
Wow! You are so ahead of the game! I haven’t even finished with my stds 
@Miss Spaniel: Lol, yeah, I tend to go overboard on the stuff I don’t need to do… before I get the actual stuff done. :p
@Miss Pudding: Ditto. *wince*
I had grand visions of writing thank you cards as soon as I received gifts, and then finishing them on our honeymoon and mailing them from mexico with mexican postage. Ha. None of that happened. We ended up getting them out about 3 months post wedding, once our pro pics came in and we could slap one of them on to the front of the cards.
Mine are going to be late. Three days after the wedding, FI leaves for 3 weeks on active duty (pre-deployment). Two weeks after HE leaves, I leave for a MONTH! Sheesh. I’ll have to apologize to guests, or let them know at the wedding that we’ll be playing Army all summer!
I was determined to get our Thank you’s out before we moved and I got everything all messed up. That sort-of didn’t happen though. So, I created a spreadsheet to log all the gifts on so I couldn’t lose that list, and then slowly sent them over about a 6 week period.
We got our Thank You notes done within 6 weeks, I think. I wanted to get them out within a month, but it just took longer than I thought. It was good to get them done sooner, so they weren’t just hanging over my head.
We hope to get them done withing 2 months, 1 month if my move goes smoothly.
We were JUST talking about this last night. We have yet to receive a thank you note for a wedding gift we gave back in August. A mutual friend responded that the bride and groom have up to a year to send out thank you notes.
What?! No way.
3 months seems more like it and even gives some room for relaxing. I’m glad to know I’m not the only stickler for getting things done.
@completelyrandomsally: Six weeks is totally awesome response time! I’m sorry about your husband’s job.
@Miss Pudding: You’ll get there!
@tea: @Miss Hamster: Why thank you! I like to be totally on top of some projects so that I can forgive myself for the ones I totally slack on.
@Mrs. Penguin: That’s a brilliant idea: cards already written, just wait for the photos? Love it! Maybe we’ll get photo corners and pin them in to do the same on some of our later ones! Ooh! New project!
@littlebug: I think that may be one of the best reasons ever for late thank you cards! Are you both Army? Your guests ought to be sending *you* thank you cards.
@pvaulter718: @Jessie516: That’s still pretty dang fast! So organized!
@HereComesTheSun: I hate that mindset. If you run late, you run late, but to take that much time and put them off so long because you view the notes as a chore kind of irritates me. Buying a gift is a chore, too!
Such a good idea to get them made early! I actually haven’t really thought about thank you cards yet, but know you’ve got my wheels-a-turnin!
I wish I would’ve done this! In the end, I got all my thank you cards out within three months, but I wish I would have spent more time making them look pretty.
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Mrs. Spaniel, Los Angeles Age and Occupation: 28, Law Student Fiance's Age and Occupation: 29, Psychologist Wedding Date: March 2010 Venue: Calamigos Ranch About Me: I'm a third-year law student trying to balance graduating with starting my career, keeping up a relationship, and, oh yeah, planning an Old World, multi-cultural, "mountain lodge" wedding for 180 guests! A South Asian Jewish girl getting ready to marry my handsome Catholic Dane, I'm hoping to blend our cultures in our wedding just a bit more gently than by providing samosas as appetizers and offering æbleskiver for dessert. (Although that would also be awesome.)
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