Writing and sending wedding thank you cards is one of the final tasks to check off on your wedding planning list.
After a year (or more) of wedding planning, shopping, and preparing for one of the happiest days of your life, it can be easy to forget to write and send a message of gratitude to family and friends.
Our 4 practical etiquette tips will help to ensure that you write and send the most perfectly crafted personalized messages of thanks…
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1. Send A Card To All Who Helped Make Your Wedding A Success
Wedding thank you cards are not solely for your family, friends, and acquaintances. They are designed for the purpose of showing love, appreciation, and gratitude to everyone who helped to make your wedding a happy and joyful celebration.
When writing a list of people to send thank you cards to, it’s important to include:
- Everyone in attendance at your wedding who bought you a gift
- Anyone who didn’t attend your wedding but sent a gift in lieu of their presence
- Anyone who financially contributed to your wedding (parents and other family members)
- Wedding guests that didn’t give a gift
- Anyone who attended the hen night, stag do or bridal shower
- Vendors and suppliers that you booked to provide essential services on your big day
- Anyone who ran errands for you in the lead up to your wedding day, whether they attended the main event or not
Before you get started writing the beautiful cards, don’t forget to double-check that you haven’t missed anyone off your list! If you’re not sure whether you should include someone on the list, it’s always best to send a card to avoid causing potential upset or offense.
2. Handwrite The Cards
Although we are living in a digital age, where it’s become acceptable to mostly communicate via email or text, there are still some seemingly old-fashioned traditions that will forever stand the test of time. One of the most important of the quaint customs is the handwriting of physical thank you cards, to send in the post.
No matter how tempting it may be to quickly send an email or a text, to say ‘thank you’ to a guest, it’s highly recommended that you follow wedding etiquette rules. Some guests may consider a digital approach to be thoughtless, or even rude. A heartfelt, handwritten message that is presented in a thank you card will always be well received.
If you have concerns that you have poor penmanship, try your best and don’t worry too much, as guests will always appreciate a handwritten note, regardless of how neat the writing is. Prior to writing the cards, it’s an excellent idea to practice your writing technique with a variety of different pens. As you’re likely to be writing a lot of cards, choose the pen that feels most comfortable in your hand, and that makes the writing task easy.
If you are in charge of writing the thank you messages, be sure to get your spouse to sign their name at the bottom, instead of you writing it for them.
3. Be Personal & Specific
If you’re faced with having to handwrite a huge stack of wedding thanks to you cards, the task may be daunting. To speed up the writing process, it’s perfectly understandable that you may consider writing a thank you message that is simple and generic.
Sending cards that contain a generic message – that you can easily repeat from one card to the next – is impersonal and a little thoughtless. Good wedding etiquette dictates that a thank you card should be written in a manner that is personal and specific. This means that each card that you write should incorporate a unique message that is personalized according to whom you’re writing.
Let each person know how much it meant to you that they were a part of your wedding day. Thank them for the specific gift that they gave you, and perhaps mention how you have used it. If someone gifted you money, it’s acceptable to write a note regarding how useful the generous gift will be in helping you begin married life, or that you have spent it on a particular item for your home. However, it’s best to avoid mentioning the actual amount.
It’s obviously important that you don’t forget which guest gave you which gift. Thanking the wrong guest for the wrong gift is embarrassing, and an etiquette error that is so easily avoided. To ensure that you don’t get in a muddle, keep a wedding gift notebook. When opening each wedding gift with your spouse, write down the name of the person and the gift they gave you. You’ll easily be able to see at a glance who gave what. Use the notebook as a point of reference, and write your cards in the order that you opened the gifts.
4. Mail Your Cards In Good Time
Traditionally, wedding thank you cards are written and sent in the mail in a timely fashion. Ideally, your cards should be completed and ready for posting one to three months after your wedding celebrations have taken place. If you leave it any longer, your guests may assume that you have forgotten to send a message of gratitude, or that you have overlooked wedding etiquette rules.
If you’re super organized, or you’re honeymooning at a later date, it’s perfectly acceptable to send thank you cards as early as a week after tying the knot.
