How to Write Wedding Thank You Notes Part I

Kris and I got married nine months ago. We had an incredible wedding and honeymoon, but once we were back, I had a bunch of stuff to take care of - unpacking my stuff, unboxing, organizing and putting away all our wedding gifts, cleaning, decorating, learning how to run the washer and dryer, cooking for two, adjusting to married life, and writing a ton of thank you notes.

I knew that if I put off writing those notes, they would NEVER get done. I’d read online that it’s general etiquette to wait no longer than three months after the wedding to send your notes. So, after the first week of being back from the honeymoon and settling in to my new house, I got started.

I did a little research before and during the process of writing around 100 thank yous and figured out what worked best for me. I hope this two-part series will give you some ideas to help make this gigantic task easier. (And these ideas will help with any kind of thank you note, not just wedding!)

1) Before your wedding, having a “thank you” note book, where you write the name of the person who gave the gift and what they give. Use this for all your showers, random gifts along the way, and the wedding and record everything! It may seem tedious at the time, but this is so helpful when it comes time to write your notes.

2) Compile where you can. If Aunt Jane gave a gift for your bridal shower and your wedding, thank her for both the gifts in one note. Exceptions would be if Mrs. Johnson gave you a pretty pajama set for your lingerie shower and the whole Johnson family gave a dish set for your wedding.

3) You don’t really need to follow this step, but it worked for me - organize the thank yous according to group - his family, her family, bridal shower, etc.

4) enough stamps

5) Buy the thank you notes. You can spend a lot of money on these, but I found a whole bunch of really cute cards at The Dollar Tree - I think there were eight in a pack. I sent the cutesy ones to close friends and saved the more professional, “wedding” ones for those I didn’t know super well.

6) Figure out how your will write the notes and how simple or complex you want to go.

I typed out each note, then wrote it out by hand. My goal was to cover just one side of the card with words, so if I didn’t have much to say, I’d write a little bigger.

This is one of those areas that if you shoot for the stars, you might end up discouraged and never finish. Keep things sweet and simple.

Stay tuned for a bonus blog post on Friday where, in part two, I’ll give some nitty gritty details about writing thank you notes and what worked for me. (I would have included it all in one post, but it got way too long. ;-)