Mini rant: thank you cards

In ink, hand-written, mailed (USPS) no more than two weeks after receipt of present. At least three sentences (four is better), expressing delight at *specific* gift (or, if money, "generous gift.") See Miss Manners for further details.

Honestly, pre-printed is worse than no thank you at all. It shows that you know a thank you is required but don't have the good manners to write one. Also, a thank you is a way for your guest to know that their gift was received. A picture that says thank you fails to do that.

I hand wrote all thank you notes with my husband - we have three or four more to do but we actually sat in the room and when he was stumped I mentioned us dancing in the gazebo with so and so, or how we can't wait to see them in two weeks for x. It only took a few hours. Preprinted does suck, but at least they sent one. I never used to send thank you notes before planning our wedding. Now...thank you notes for everything!

For a long time I thought I could personally care less about thank you cards. A pre printed one is a nice gesture and written ones always sounded inauthentic to me (i.e., thanks for "fill-in-the-blank" and for coming). However, I recently went to a wedding and the bride and groom took a picture of them at home using the items (in a silly way) that I gave them. They included the picture with a note about how much they appreciate the goods and our attendance. That changed my mind about thank you cards. That took a bit of thought, brightened my day and I won't forget that for a while!

A pre-printed thank you note is completely unacceptable. It is lazy and impersonal with no acknowledgement of the gift given to the couple.

It actually is NOT better than no thank you note at all because they aren't even thanking guests for their gift (which is the entire point of a thank you note).

I'm all about the personalized thank you note. I think the cards you can order with a picture of you and a thank you phrase still require a handwritten, personalized note.

I'd be giving a preprinted thank you card with no personal message a raised eyebrow, but I wouldn't lose sleep over it, though. It's not like they didn't say thank you at all, they just could have done a better job.

I agree that personal is better.... I got a preprinted post card for a wedding I didn't attend but sent them a cash gift, so it didn't really bother me. But it was so nice to receive a personalized thank you from my other friend's wedding (which I also could not attend, but sent gifts), that I will always send personal notes.

But at least the postcards are SOME kind of effort... my own brother and SIL never sent anything whatsoever to anyone, including me or my parents, and I spent hundreds on gifts for them. So that felt good.... lol.

I actually don't care for preprinted or handwritten, to me all that counts is a thought to send a thank you.

I've been to two weddings and one didn't send anything, while the other sent a collage of pictures on a pre printed thank you note. Which in my opinion was very beautiful.

If you have a big wedding, imagine writing over 50 thank you's. And not to mention sometimes you can't really read who the gift/envelope was from (messy handwriting).

My daughters first birthday was like that, I could barely read some of the names on the cards she received...and to make matters worse some left an address I couldn't read when they signed the guest book (I attempted to send the "handwritten" thank you cards through the mail, however some of them got returned due to a bad address that I absolutely could not read).

Just saying....FH did not help me with my daughters thank you's due to "I have really bad handwriting..." excuse. I'm not saying we're going to do pre-printed thank you's however I know for myself that if we decide to handwrite our thank you cards (really its a while til we need to think of doing thank yous), I would be the one to write them all....and we have a total of 160 guests.

^^ umm what? You have the addresses from when you sent invitations. Why in the world would you expect guests to write their address in the guest book? That's not what it's for.

And yes, some people have large weddings. It does NOT matter. Everyone who took the time and money to give you a gift deserves a personalized thank you note (hand written). This is not something you "decide". It may take 1-2 months to do them all, but you do it.

I don't mind a preprinted thank you note, I got one with just a picture of the married couple i thought that it was fine

50 thank you notes means that couple would receive several hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars worth of gifts. That certainly deserves a few hours of time to sit down and properly thank anyone who took the time and selected and purchased a gift. There is no excuse to not send a handwritten, personal thank you note.

Is it acceptable to wait longer than 2 weeks if you're literally going on an immediate 2 week honeymoon, followed by moving? I mean, I would write them immediately upon returning. That was something I hadn't thought of.

I'm also considering sending a few a day, from various destinations on our honeymoon (we're traveling the country), but the other part of me is like, I just kinda want to relax and enjoy that time while we're on the road.

Concerning messages: I definitely have received the generic (but hand written) "Thanks for your gift" and nothing more, and while I guess I did find it a little thoughtless, I did still feel like, well hey at least they took the time to handwrite a note. For my BP, I got some cash gifts, and I also got some gifts that weren't terribly "meaningful". But I just dove into each card and made sure it was personal. If it was someone that I could come up with a really special memory of, I talked about how meaningful it was to see them there. Actually, great example, my best friend from college who gave me this game of like "Couples 20 Questions", which was on my registry when I was scraping the bottom of the barrel for things to put. It wasn't a gift that I particularly cared about, though I appreciated it, but for the card, was going to have a hard time drawing inspiration, so I just talked about how great it was to see her there, and how I cannot wait to go to Ithaca to camp with her and her family this summer, etc. Whatever personalization, even if you detract a little from the actual gift, to tell the PERSON what they mean to you.

Personally I feel guests took the time and spent money to come to my wedding, I can take the time to send a thank you. Yes it takes time but my husband and I split them up and it really into takes 1-2 mins to write one. We just spent 2-3 nights writing them out and used address labels for envelopes.

@christine ettiquette says you have up to a year but honestly after a couples months I kind of forget I attended a wedding. I set a deadline of a month for me so it was fresh in my mind and the point is to thank the guest for your gift... They want to know before 3 months or a year that you received it... Make the time to write them, guests made time to come to your wedding!

I agree hand written is more personal. I see no problem with doing pre printed. I think it's a matter of performance. I will hand write mine, i know some people find it easier to use pre printed ones.

Oh who cares at least you got a thank you note.

You do not have a YEAR to send thank yous. Etiquette does not say that. It is a myth. For some reason this myth keeps getting circulated and will not die.

Most etiquette guidelines say 2-3 months after the wedding. This allows time for a honeymoon and for taking time to write personalized notes, even if you have a large guest list.

Ive gotten those before as well, and i always feel kind of cheapened. Like, they couldnt even write thank you for ___, whatever specific gift i got. It doesnt have to be long, but something to acknowledge my gift and attendance. I also feel that way about Christmas cards that are preprinted and they dont bother writing even one sentence.

Honestly, I wouldn't care at all. I don't really care about thank you notes. I'm doing it because it's etiquette, but I'm never bummed if I don't get one hand written.

@Emily M. We live in Hawaii, when we had our daughters first bday we had people sign a guest book because there were people on my FH side that we hand delivered the invitations to. And not to mention FH mother and grandmother invited family friends (also hand delivered invitations).

Btw it's not uncommon in Hawaii to hand deliver invitations.

And I did hand write all my thank you's for my daughters bday party. I just mentioned we haven't gotten far enough in our wedding to think/decide about thank you's.