Weddingbee Blog

I swear I like writing thank you notes more than I like receiving gifts.

*blink, blink* “Did Pretzel just say what I think she said?”

Damn straight I did! No, your mother didn’t pay me to say that. And although I would certainly enjoy one, no I don’t have a cold beer in my hand right now. I’m dead serious—I love thank you notes. My Mom started us early; I can’t remember not writing thank yous for gifts or nice gestures. Usually it meant getting pretty paper or cards. Oh, how I love pretty paper. I always have a stock of cute thank you cards around the house, just in case.

Pretty paper is a perk, but really I think my love affair with thank yous stems more from the act of writing. Sitting down to hand-write why I appreciated a gift or thoughtful gesture makes me reflect on the person doing the giving and my appreciation of the gift. I know that I don’t always take time for reflection and the practice of writing thank yous helps me carve out time for this. There are times when I feel like this practice is dwindling in use.

With the exception of weddings, it feels like most people don’t send thank you notes. Sad but true. I love that my MOH/SIL “Tig” has passed this tradition on to my niece and nephew. I get handwritten (dictated when they were too little to write) thank you notes from “the Girl” and “The Boy” and it makes me happy inside. Tig, like myself, grew up writing Thank Yous. It’s a good thing too… Big Bro Pretzel hated writing thank yous as a kid and procrastinated like heck on them.

I’ll confess, when we started registering for gifts I got excited at the prospect of designing some cute cards for Mr Pretzel and me to express our gratitude. Come on, with thank you notes as cute as these, how can you not look forward to saying “thanks?”

Mr P and I Gocco-d these a couple weeks ago. I admit we got a little “bee” help in the art dept.

It was very quick to Gocco and we only used one screen for the project. Cleaning it and changing colors for the” Thank You” wasn’t as hard as I was lead to believe it would be. I used Goccogrrl screen cleaner from Northwoods Studios, lots of newspaper and paper towels. We were able to put the screen (with ink on it) in a Ziploc bag and in the refrigerator. This prevented the ink from drying up and made the cleaning process easier. I only suggest cleaning a Gocco screen for the purposes of changing colors. If you wrap it in Saran wrap and Ziploc it, you can store them in the freezer for quite some time.

I’m getting ready to jump on a plane to Indiana for bridal showers with Mr Pretzel’s family. I can’t wait to see my bridesmaids and spend time getting to know Mr Pretzel’s aunts and cousins better. And yes, I’m also excited about using more of our thank you cards.

How are you and your fiance saying “thanks”? Any other “thank you” lovers out there?