Wedding Thank You Question

[mousefanmichelle]

Maybe in your area but certainly not everywhere. Around this area many more people are invited to the wedding itself than they are the bridal shower. It is customary to give a gift off the registry at the shower of course but many people who are only invited to the wedding still give gifts off the registry....or go rogue and get a gift not on the registry at all. To be sure, many people who go to only the wedding give cash rather than a gift off the registry but to suggest that in Michigan people give cash at weddings is simply absurd. Unless you meant people invited to both the shower AND the wedding give a gift at the shower and cash at the wedding which may be true.

I don't think that I need to specify what the trend is here. In our area what I said holds true whether or not they were invited to the shower and wedding or just the wedding. That's how it is here, in my neck of the woods. I don't care about everywhere as it doesn't apply to my situation. And it should not matter if I gave something off the registry or $1000 bucks - a personal note, since we are family, should have been written on the pre-printed thank you. And generally in my area it's a cover your plate mentality so if you give something off the registry at the wedding you are being cheap and most likely not covering your plate. The couple wants cash to cover the cost of their reception.

 

[LilyWDW]

Personally, I think this is a really silly thing to get "offended" about. Sorry, that has me laughing!

I never wrote a thank you note for a birthday, xmas, or graduation gift. The thank you was always delivered personally. To me, that is much better then a note. All that said, if I didn't get a note, I don't even think I would notice!

 

[Turn the Page]

I don't think that I need to specify what the trend is here. In our area what I said holds true whether or not they were invited to the shower and wedding or just the wedding. That's how it is here, in my neck of the woods. I don't care about everywhere as it doesn't apply to my situation. And it should not matter if I gave something off the registry or $1000 bucks - a personal note, since we are family, should have been written on the pre-printed thank you. And generally in my area it's a cover your plate mentality so if you give something off the registry at the wedding you are being cheap and most likely not covering your plate. The couple wants cash to cover the cost of their reception.

Good lord, relax. Perhaps you didn't notice but I live in Michigan too and I was simply stating that despite your assertion that "this is how it is done in Michigan" that is not state wide. Maybe in YOUR part of Michigan but that is not customary EVERYWHERE in Michigan. NONE of the bolded in your statement is true for the part of Michigan I live in.

Where I live, also in Michigan, "cover your plate" is not something anyone I know worries about in the least, we generally give what we can afford. Also, it is also generally assumed that the bride and groom and/or their parents are paying for the reception not relying on their guests to pay for it.

 

[Turn the Page]

At this point, I think I'm happy to receive a thank-you in the first place. We went to 5 weddings last year, and only received thank-you notes from two of them (both were hand-written and personal messages).

I'm 31, and am still very traditional in my views about wedding etiquette. Wedding gifts are usually more expensive and meaningful than birthday or Christmas gifts (which I don't expect a thank-you card/note for those).

When I was a kid and we had birthday parties with extended family I was expected to thank everyone for their gift of course. However, my mom and one of my aunts seem to believe thanking for a birthday gift at the party was not enough. If they didn't receive a phone call then they weren't thanked. I always thought that was strange.

Did the bridal couple SAY thank you at some point for your help that evening? Frankly, that would mean more to me than a hand written note.

In recent years, the only wedding thank you's I've gotten (including from my own sister) have been pre printed postcards. It's fine, AFAIC.

See, I always thought it was a bit strange to write thank you notes to close family members, i.e. siblings and parents. Maybe that is just me though. Extended family for things like weddings and graduations, yes. Especially if you aren't particularly close to them.

Hope they were those "Forever" stamps-rates go up this month!

I DO think the Thank you card with bridal couple pic is the "new Norm"....lots of things revolving around weddings has been influenced by social media these days

Plus wedding invitations generally require several stamps.

Funny story, the first wedding announcement I saw in the form of a photo post card was about 2 decades ago now. My aunt had gotten divorced because her husband was cheating on her with her best friend. The two of them ended up eloping to Vegas and sent announcements to some of our own family members. Klassy.

 

[LAB81018]

My mother always told me that you didn't mention the dollar amount, but that you thanked them for their "generous gift" and then added what you hoped/intended to used it for. It's always good to finish by thanking them for attending the wedding and sharing in the joy of your wedding day.

Just a bit of humor:

Dear Aunt Sally,

Thank you for your generous gift. I used it to bail Frank out of jail after he got into a fight with the husband of the woman he was drunkenly hitting on in a bar in Tortolla on our honeymoon.

Thank you for your presence at our wedding and hope to see you at my next wedding as well.

Love, Julie



I was also taught this as well and followed it.

I guess I also wonder what would have happened to an acceptable thank you note. Would it have been retained or also found it's way to the trash?

 

[Jaya]

Maybe in your area but certainly not everywhere. Around this area many more people are invited to the wedding itself than they are the bridal shower. It is customary to give a gift off the registry at the shower of course but many people who are only invited to the wedding still give gifts off the registry....or go rogue and get a gift not on the registry at all. To be sure, many people who go to only the wedding give cash rather than a gift off the registry but to suggest that in Michigan people give cash at weddings is simply absurd. Unless you meant people invited to both the shower AND the wedding give a gift at the shower and cash at the wedding which may be true.

To borrow your phrase, "maybe in your area but certainly not everywhere." I'm a former Michigander and it seemed to me that there were more people who gave cash than those who gave presents. But then, maybe I'm just being "absurd", hmmmm?

 

[Jaya]

Just a bit of humor:

Dear Aunt Sally,

Thank you for your generous gift. I used it to bail Frank out of jail after he got into a fight with the husband of the woman he was drunkenly hitting on in a bar in Tortolla on our honeymoon.

Thank you for your presence at our wedding and hope to see you at my next wedding as well.

Love, Julie



I was also taught this as well and followed it.

I guess I also wonder what would have happened to an acceptable thank you note. Would it have been retained or also found it's way to the trash?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Brilliant!

 

[Turn the Page]

To borrow your phrase, "maybe in your area but certainly not everywhere." I'm a former Michigander and it seemed to me that there were more people who gave cash than those who gave presents. But then, maybe I'm just being "absurd", hmmmm?

Ummm....no. Don't try and twist what I said. All I said was it is not that way in my area of Michigan and that to claim one way is customary throughout the state is absurd. I did not call the person I was replying to absurd, it was the blanket statement that was absurd. Don't read more into my post than was actually there.

If you want specifics, any friends or family members up here who had weddings with most people being from our area got mostly gifts. Sure, they got some cash, but not a whole lot and certainly not most. My SIL is from the Detroit area and they had quite a few people from downstate at the wedding and they got thousands of dollars in cash. That may be the norm in lower Michigan but it is NOT up here.

 

[Bec3b1g]

I don't think that I need to specify what the trend is here. In our area what I said holds true whether or not they were invited to the shower and wedding or just the wedding. That's how it is here, in my neck of the woods. I don't care about everywhere as it doesn't apply to my situation. And it should not matter if I gave something off the registry or $1000 bucks - a personal note, since we are family, should have been written on the pre-printed thank you. And generally in my area it's a cover your plate mentality so if you give something off the registry at the wedding you are being cheap and most likely not covering your plate. The couple wants cash to cover the cost of their reception.

So did the couples of the last few weddings you attended have wedding web sites? Mine did and they included registry info on the sites. That leads me to believe they were open to receiving registry gifts. And some of the registry gifts were several hundred dollars so most certainly covered the cost to attend the wedding. It really must regional if the registry gifts are seen as being cheap.

 

[RedAngie]

DH and I attended two weddings in 2015, both for couples in their late 20s. For one, we never received ANY type of thank you, not a card, not an e-mail, not in person, not even spoken third hand from the parents of the couple.

The other couple sent out a mass e-mail thank you. It was already delivered by the time we got home from the reception. Funny thing is, the time stamp indicates it was sent BEFORE the actual time of the wedding.

For both weddings we received simple but tasteful invitations in the mail, with RSVP cards. Seems when they wanted gifts they acted nice, but after the loot was pocketed, it was pretty much "Screw You."

I wasn't offended. I was grateful they showed how rude, tacky and classless they are.

 

[littleblackegg]

It's not the way the card looks. It's the sincerity of the sentiment. Remember when you were little and got your first box of Crane stationary from your grandmother? She taught me that the people who give me gifts love me, and letting them know how much I liked the present was the polite way to go. I think I enjoy writing thank yous more every year (though I have replaced my Crane with cards from an awesome letterpress company). I don't think this is a tradition in most families anymore. I have no judgements about it. The extinction of the hand-written note is bound to occur. I'm not giving it up, however!

 

[Christine]

DH and I attended two weddings in 2015, both for couples in their late 20s. For one, we never received ANY type of thank you, not a card, not an e-mail, not in person, not even spoken third hand from the parents of the couple.

The other couple sent out a mass e-mail thank you. It was already delivered by the time we got home from the reception. Funny thing is, the time stamp indicates it was sent BEFORE the actual time of the wedding.

For both weddings we received simple but tasteful invitations in the mail, with RSVP cards. Seems when they wanted gifts they acted nice, but after the loot was pocketed, it was pretty much "Screw You."

I wasn't offended. I was grateful they showed how rude, tacky and classless they are.

This is the part I find most puzzling. Those that have weddings and go for these big elaborate invites and RSVPs. You are able to see that they are capable of thinking that through carefully. When it comes to thank yous. Nothing.

Oh, and I'm "old" but I'd be thrilled with an personal email thank you instead of on stationery.

 

[mousefanmichelle]

Like I said an acknowledgment more than the pre-printed Thank You that went out would have satisfied me. I hand wrote out all of our thank you's with a personal little note to the gift giver for our wedding - 24 years ago.

I don't understand the handwritten note for the wedding shower but not the wedding. I am letting it go because it's done and it wasn't what I was expecting but it's what I got. So in it's simplest terms, yes I was thanked, just not the way I thought I would be.

And to answer the question - were we thanked at the wedding for staying, after the majority of the guests left, to help clean up? No, we were not. In fact, the bride and groom didn't really even talk to us at the wedding. They didn't seem like they could be bothered. But they got up the next morning and made it to the bank to cash my check. Which just makes it seem like a gift grab ya know?

 

[design_mom]

I think that the thank you should be personalized. I would be satisfied with an in person thank you, a phone call, a personal e-mail, or a personal card. A mass produced "thanks for coming and thanks for the gift" doesn't seem to cut it for me. (But, no, I don't save those thank you cards either. I read and recycle.)

The first mass-produced, non-personalized wedding thank you note I received was almost 20 years ago, so it's not new. I think it's becoming more common, but the traditional thank-you note isn't dead. I just received a very nice, personalized, hand-written one today from a wedding we attended in the fall. And I think it was written by the groom, whom we are closer to, and I think that was nice as well.

 

[Turn the Page]

This is the part I find most puzzling. Those that have weddings and go for these big elaborate invites and RSVPs. You are able to see that they are capable of thinking that through carefully. When it comes to thank yous. Nothing.

Oh, and I'm "old" but I'd be thrilled with an personal email thank you instead of on stationery.

I agree. I think what is important is the personalization. Saying thank you in any form is better than nothing but the personalization is, in my opinion, key. I couldn't care less whether it comes in physical, electronic, typed, or handwritten form.

 

[CookieandOatmeal]

At the last wedding I went to, we were handed "scrolls" tied with ribbon as we filed out of the reception hall which said something to the effect of "thank you for coming and for your gift". That was it for a "thank you". Doesn't surprise me, though, as the wedding invitation included a card that said please no presents, just checks, cash and gift cards. The bride's mother called most people before the wedding and mentioned that the happy couple would prefer cash over checks and gift cards, as they were leaving directly for their honeymoon after the reception and needed the money.

What a rude thing to put on the invitation! I can see why you didn't want to make it an issue since it was family but still, how rude! If someone put that down on an invite I got, I would totally get a present just to spite them lol.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

I'd love to know if thank you notes are predominately a female need. I've never in my life received a thank you note written by a man or heard a guy complaining he didn't receive one or it wasn't up to his standards.

Probably it's more important to women. But I handwrote at least 40% of the thank you cards for my first wedding without nagging from first wife. Second wedding was very small, we requested "no gifts, please" but some still gave, and we handwrote thank you cards to them, even after thanking them in person.

For a wedding gift, I damn well expect a thank you card, note, picture postcard, etc. and it better be up to my low standards. One handwritten line and signature will suffice, even if the message is the generic "thank you for the gift and for sharing the day with us." If the couple can't be bothered to do that, have the courtesy to inform the guests in advance that gifts are NOT wanted.

 

[Dis703]

Yes, I'm pretty sure this is becoming the new norm. I've received these photo cards as a thank you for birthdays, baptisms, and a wedding. It's not something I really think about. I don't really need a thank you at all so it doesn't bother me one way or the other.

 

[Jaya]

What a rude thing to put on the invitation! I can see why you didn't want to make it an issue since it was family but still, how rude! If someone put that down on an invite I got, I would totally get a present just to spite them lol.

Well, I DID write them a check. That was my little rebellion....