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Thursday, November 4, 2010

Tips: A Proper Thank You

Our first batch of thank you's went out in May shortly after we received the first wave of gifts. Today I learned that procrastination (or absentmindedly forgetting where I placed our written thank you notes) is a good thing.

Why? While I know that thank yous should be written and sent no later than a month after receiving the gift, I didn't know that amounts of money or gift certificates should not be mentioned. Oops. Thankfully that means I only have to rewrite three notes. (Luckily we didn't receive gift certificates in May. So no faux paus there.)

For anyone who is unsure about how to write a proper thank you, check out Good Mouse Bad's tips. She covers every angle and gives concrete examples. For anyone who is uncertain when to send their thank yous or how many (a combined note for a shower gift and wedding gift or separate notes), here are delivery tips.

Timing
  • For gifts received before the wedding, send thank you notes within 1 to 2 weeks.
  • For gifts received after the wedding, send thank you notes within a month after you return from your honeymoon - assuming you go on your honeymoon (or mini-moon) immediately after your wedding, not weeks or months later.
Form
No matter how tempted you are, never ever combine a thank you note. If a guest attended your shower and gave you a gift, send them a thank you note for that gift. If the same guest attended your wedding and gave you another gift, send them another thank you note for that gift.
  • For gifts received at your shower, send a thank you note on your stationery.
  • For gifts received at your wedding or sent to you both, send a thank you note on stationery that matches the paper goods from your wedding.

All of our (and my) thank you notes - correctly written - should be in the mail by tomorrow. They'll be delivered within a month of the wedding (we're not leaving for our mini-moon until later this month so to wait until we returned would have been pushing it) so according to etiquette for most gifts we're timely. Unfortunately, for gifts that arrived during Syzygryd madness or between Burning Man and our wedding, some will be definitely late.

Also... as it's more than two weeks after my shower, I fail in timeliness there. And running out of stationery (or being away for a week on a business trip) is no excuse at all (it just shows how horribly out of practice I am at proper acknowledgements).

Hopefully our (and my) guests will understand and still appreciate the note.

1 comment:

  1. I don't think *anyone* can fault you for not getting your bridal shower thank yous out within 2 weeks of your shower - or wedding thank yous either! Everyone knows how busy you've been and how crazy weddings can be.

    For our part, we received several gifts starting in the beginning of October which we're only just now able to send thank yous for. Even though those gifts were received before the wedding, because they came in the crazy 3 weeks before the wedding (which included a trip back east for another wedding!) we weren't able to send notes until now. Fortunately I was able to do my bridal shower thank yous on the plane to Hawaii so those should all be received within the next couple of days. A couple weeks late, but really, is anyone going to be upset? Seriously, if someone is miffed because thank you note is a week or two late, they probably need to reevaluate their priorities.

    ReplyDelete

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