Thank You Rules

Thank You Rules

June 24th, 2011 @ 2:07 pm by Mrs. Biscuit
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I’ll be the first to admit it: I’m not that great at thank you notes. As a child, we had a special Hallmark program to make cards on our computer and the most commonly used one had a turtle on it:

Thank You Rules : wedding etiquette morgantown thank you Thankyoup1

It’s not that I wasn’t grateful for my gifts. I guess I’m kind of a procrastinator. OK, that’s a lie. I’m the Procrastinator. I’ll formally claim my title—someday.

But I know wedding thank you’s are something I cannot put off.

I know that I get anxious when I don’t hear back from a bride within a month or two of the wedding. I often wonder, “Did they get their gifts? Did they hate them? Were they kidnapped by giant monkeys in top hats while on the honeymoon?” Legitimate stuff.

I’m also worried about being seen as the bride who snubs if I put it off for too long. Two years ago, my family went to a wedding for my mother’s friend’s daughter. Yeah, say that three times fast. We gave the couple a card and cash and never received a thank you note. My mother was worried we didn’t give enough money and the couple felt snubbed or that someone stole the card. I’m going to say that maybe the bride wasn’t exactly versed in the laws of etiquette and didn’t send out Thank You notes. Any way you slice it, we don’t exactly have a flattering view of that couple anymore.

So, in an effort to minimize the number of guests who find me an uncouth, I have set some simple ground rules for myself as our wedding guests come trickling in:

Write a Thank You note as soon as I receive a gift.
Do not use aforementioned gift (or cash any checks) until two day after the note has been mailed to allow it to reach the generous party.

So far, it’s been working out pretty well. I have my first batch of notes—for my shower and the first round of wedding gifts—going out tomorrow and I have not used any gift yet even though I’m itching to. Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep this up after the wedding as well.

How did you make sure all of your notes got out in a timely manner?

Tags: etiquette, morgantown, thank-you |

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20 Responses to “Thank You Rules”

Guest

Mrs.Dr.T

Thank you for writing this!! The last two weddings my husband and I were at we never received thank you notes from the couple. One of the brides I had mailed a shower gift to and she never even acknowledged that she had gotten it. I finally had to text her to make sure it had arrived. The only response I got was a text saying “Yep. Thx.” It wasn’t a crappy gift either– I had made her a scrapbook with all their engagement photos and a nice gift certificate to Victoria Secret.

When my husband and I got married, we sent our thank you’s out the following week by taking advantage of time between flights on our honeymoon

6/24/11 @ 2:19 pm (reply)

Member

ThePinkPeony (message) 264 posts, Helper bee

Oh, I hear you, Miss B - I am… not prompt, let’s say - with really anything. But I didn’t want to be *that* bride after people have already been so warm and generous and loving in celebrating our engagement, so I made the same rule you did - we could not use/spend any gift until all the notes from the event were out in the mail (and given that one of our guests had given us the most precious peony plates EVER that I was just dying to get out of their box and use, you better believe that was great impetus to get them in the mail toot sweet, as my dad says!) congrats on getting all your notes done!!

6/24/11 @ 2:21 pm (reply)

Member

hotchocolate (message) 257 posts, Helper bee

Argh… this is again reminding me of not one but TWO weddings we went to last year, and never got a thank you card. I try so hard not to let it affect my view of those people… but obviously it totally does. It gets me angry just thinking about it! So yah, I will definitely be very certain to send thoughtful thank you notes.

Although it’ll be hard when it comes time to send thank you notes to those people who didn’t send any to us. I know I’ll be tempted to write “even though we never received your thank you for our gift, here’s ours!”

6/24/11 @ 2:23 pm (reply)

Member

Courtnee (message) 153 posts, Blushing bee

I have decided to forever write a check to the happy couple so if they cash it we know they received it. I made this decision because there were a number of guests from our wedding that didn’t get us a gift and we are worried it was lost… but you can’t just ask them without being rude. So we they might think we are rude for not sending a card…

6/24/11 @ 2:37 pm (reply)

Member

TheFutureMcBride (message) 4,479 posts, Honey bee

We didn’t. My computer died 2 months after the wedding with all the addresses and thank you cards I designed. Nice! We sent them out the other week and I just talked to someone today who made fun of us for getting them out so late. At least we sent them out before a year was up.

6/24/11 @ 2:45 pm (reply)

Member

Miss Palmetto (message) 52 posts, Worker bee

Oh the thank yous…

We just finished a few weeks ago and our wedding was March 5th. There are so many ways in which this area is fraught with problems!

Our biggest ones so far:

1. Friend J was listed on her parents gift, which we received the week of the wedding and wrote a thank you to her parents and mentioned her in the note also. Then friend J texts me a few weeks later saying, “I have your gift! Can I bring it by your parents house?” No problem. But, months later, no gift. I started to worry that I had forgotten to log her gift in the spreadsheet we used to manage thank yous. Finally I had to text her to be sure I wasnt losing my mind. She hadnt dropped it off yet, so now I feel awkward!

2. This was the worst and why I will NEVER recommend anyone I know to register at Bloomingdales. Friend E and her husband bought us an out of stock gift from our registry. Bloomingdales sent us an email notifying us of the purchase and an estimated ship date. Months went by, no present. I called Bloomingdales and they cant give me an estimate for when it will ship.

So I said, can I just have a credit? No, because they do not charge the purchase until the item ships or is classified as unavailable. So they havent even charged my friend’s card yet.

Ok so, can you email the purchaser and let her know that the gift was never received and she may want to choose another item? The answer: No. We do not communicate with the purchaser until the gift is shipped or permanently unavailable.

So I dont want to write a thank you note because I may never get the gift AND if it IS unavailable she will get an email saying so, which will just be confusing as to why I thanked her for something I never got! But I didnt want to keep waiting on writing her the note, so I HAD TO CONTACT her and tell her what was up.

It was SO awkward and I felt so grabby. In short, terrible terrible service from a company that supposedly prides themselves on high end merchandise and boutique service!

Good luck with your thank you notes!

6/24/11 @ 2:51 pm (reply)

Bee

Miss Pony (message) 4,174 posts, Honey bee

I’ve always received a thank you note for gifts (one was literally a year after the wedding, but still got it). I think your idea is a great one. More incentive to write the thank you when there are gifts waiting to be used

6/24/11 @ 2:52 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Trail Mix (message) 6,328 posts, Bee Keeper

Those are great rules for TY notes, that was the rule in my house for years! No using a gift until the TY note has been written!

6/24/11 @ 3:03 pm (reply)

Bee

Mrs. Lox (message) 1,128 posts, Bumble bee

I am evil bride because we cashed all the checks before we left on our honeymoon, but I just sent out thank you notes last week. For what it’s worth, I did have the decency to feel guilty that it took me over a month to get them out of the house. But after hearing all of these stories, maybe I wasn’t so late/bad after all!

6/24/11 @ 3:05 pm (reply)

10.

Bee

Miss Snow Cone (message) 1,026 posts, Bumble bee

I am severely lacking thank-you experience and etiquette, so I love your rule about no card = no using the gift!

6/24/11 @ 3:40 pm (reply)

11.

Member

Ree723 (message) 1,569 posts, Bumble bee

I don’t know Biscuit, I may be able to challenge you for the title of Queen Procrastinator! I just got the last of my shower thank you notes done yesterday (shower was 12 days earlier) and have already planned a strategic attack for getting the wedding thank yous out in a timely manner. Your advice is awesome, but as we’re not bringing most of our stuff back to Australia with us, it won’t apply too well for us. Same thing with cashing checks - we need to have those cashed before we leave the country. Our plan - make use of that 14.5 hour flight back to Australia to get the majority (if not all) of the thank you notes written then! I’m in the process of addressing all of the envelopes now so that’s one less thing we’ll have to do…. we’ll see how we go!

6/24/11 @ 3:42 pm (reply)

12.

Bee

Mrs. Tartlet (message) 3,207 posts, Sugar bee

Great rules, Biscuit! I also wrote thank you notes as the gifts came in, and it really helped space things out (2-3 at a time is far less intimidating than 30+).

6/24/11 @ 3:52 pm (reply)

13.

Member

rachiecakes (message) 737 posts, Busy bee

we ordered thank you cards with a photo from the wedding on them, mostly for the friends and family that were unable to make it. they took a while to create (needed photo from photographer) and get back from the company we ordered them from. I did have some family asking my parents if we received the gift they sent… hopefully they realized what the hold up was when they received the thank you card. :/

6/24/11 @ 3:58 pm (reply)

14.

Bee

Miss Funnel Cake (message) 690 posts, Busy bee

I totally have to do it right away or it gets longer and longer. Definitely better late than never!

6/24/11 @ 4:23 pm (reply)

15.

Bee

Mrs. Hyena (message) 1,882 posts, Buzzing bee

We’re also doing the don’t-cash-your-checks-until-the-note-is-written thing. On the other hand, I could never manage to not use something just because I haven’t finished the note. With a check, they’ll know you’ve cashed it and haven’t said thank-you; it’s not like your nesting bowls are going to call them and say “HEY, BISCUIT IS USING US!” lol.

6/24/11 @ 4:45 pm (reply)

16.

Bee

Mrs. Pain au Chocolat (message) 1,698 posts, Bumble bee

It took us two weeks after returning from honeymoon to complete our thank you notes… fast turnaround for most brides but taking that long made me anxious. We busted them out 20-30 at a time. Talk about hand cramps! I made Mr. PaC promise not to cash any checks until after the cards were mailed.

@Hyena: The first thank you notes written were the checks because of the same line of thinking!

6/24/11 @ 9:23 pm (reply)

17.

Member

Miss. Snowball (message) 740 posts, Busy bee

Although I haven’t done any wedding thank you’s yet, I did just graduate from college so I sent announcements and thank yous to the people who sent me cards of congratulations back the next day. My plan for the wedding thank yous, the groom will write the thank yous for his side of the family, I will do them for my side and we will split the friends. There will be NO procrastination in this house XX(fingers crossed).

6/25/11 @ 2:12 am (reply)

18.

Bee

Mrs. Elephant (message) 6,182 posts, Bee Keeper

Just like my college graduation thank yous, I would not let myself deposit and money until we got the thank you cards out. It was a great motivator.

6/25/11 @ 3:13 pm (reply)

19.

Guest

This sounds like a really thoughtful plan! I am impressed. I am awful with thank you notes. I just wouldn’t hold onto peoples’ checks for more than a week or two because some will complain that they haven’t cleared yet…..

6/30/11 @ 4:46 pm (reply)

20.

Guest

Ms Chihuahua

I am a procrastinator when it comes to having to write thank you notes, but I did write shower thank you’s timely, it was the wedding thank you’s that some people never got. This was not MY fault, you see the EX (an evil man) would not help with these, so no one on his side of the family got one. Sorry, but I had no idea who Kitty and Peppy were. I did write ones for his mother’s 3 co-workers after she pleaded with me to at least send them one. I broke down and did it. I hope she let the other friends and relatives on their side of the family know that the reason they didn’t get one was because of her son.
On the other hand, if I attend an event, I really don’t care if I get a thank you note or note, I usually tell people not to waste their money on postage, because then I will feel like I can’t throw their sentiments away.

7/9/11 @ 12:39 am (reply)