Wedding thank you notes and cards are easily one of the most neglected parts of wedding planning.
But, when you reflect on the time and money that many of your friends and family would have put into your big day (the planning and celebration itself) you know they deserve a thoughtful and timely thank you.
And unless you’re planning on hosting a slide night when you get your professional photos back (you sadistic bitch!), the wedding thank you card is also usually the last form of communication they receive from you about your wedding. Leave them with a sweet memory of your big day and a feeling that their efforts were truly valued.
Here are our top 4 tips to keeping wedding thank you cards quick and easy.
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1) Order your thank you notes/cards to arrive 2 months prior to your wedding.
If you’re planning on using the same style of invitations and thank you notes, you can order and receive them around the same time. You may want to tweak the thank you cards that you send out prior to your wedding to reflect that you are 'not quite' or 'almost' hitched.
If you were hoping to use one of your professional photos on your thank you cards, it may be worth investing in a small, generic stack of thank you cards so you can..
2) Start sending out your thank you cards as soon as you start receiving gifts.
Although thank yous to your parents, wedding party and suppliers/vendors will need to wait until after the wedding, a quick confirmation of receiving a present before your big day will lighten the load and make your thank you list after your wedding much less overwhelming.
It’s good etiquette to send a thank you within 2 weeks of receiving a present, but most of your guests will understand given the competing demands of the lead-up if you run out of time to keep to this timeline.
It’s generally accepted that thank yous are sent out no later than 2 months after your wedding.
3) Keep a record of who sent what and when.
When there are only a couple of presents sitting on the kitchen table, it all seems very manageable:
"Who sent that?"
"Your Aunty Trish brought it around so she didn't have to carry it to our reception.”
A few weeks later, however, it’s highly unlikely that the cards stayed with the gifts and sometimes using the magic powers of deduction (and a dated list) is the only way you'll ever work out who gave you that crystal salad bowl.
Try to record the details of who gave what and when as soon as you open the present.
A simple spreadsheet with your guest's names, their address, if they attended, the gift and the date they gave it to you, can really help to stay on top of things.
4) Draft what you are going to say before you write it on the good stuff.
This is the part that puts most couples off; what in the hell are you meant to write anyway?
There are 6 main components of the perfect thank you are:
the greeting,
the reason for the thank you,
what you're grateful for (the gift/their attendance/support/help/traveling a long way),
how you will use their gift (if appropriate),
follow up (when you hope to see them next), and
the closing.
Too much to remember, right?
That's why we made up this handy pdf swipe file for you (you're welcome!) that you can use for pretty much any thank you note or card you will ever need to write.
