Thursday, July 8, 2010

Saying thank you is not nearly enough

I knew it would be a while before I'd be able to send out thank you cards because I wanted to create them with a picture of us on the wedding day holding up our Thank and You cards and with pictures from our honeymoon since so many of our guests gave us cash and checks either directly or through our honeyfund.com site.  That said, when I finally got our pro pics back, I found the best pic I could of us holding the Thank and You cards (remember almost all the shots our photog took of us holding them had my sign covering up Mr Fix It's!) and then added in some of our best honeymoon shots.

This is what I came up with via http://www.shutterfly.com/.  I truly love this site.  They have a lot of templates and color/style options and are so user friendly and somewhat affordable.  You can often find coupon codes by doing a google search for a percent off your order or free shipping.  Which I of course did :)


The inside of the card looks like this:



I then would write little captions next to each of the pictures above saying things like "On our balcony" or "Hiking in the rainforest" so they knew what was going on or where the pic was taken.

The bottom half of the inside of the card was where I would write my message.  My sister laughed at me when she saw that I was 'writing a novel' to every one of our guests filling the entire bottom half of the page.  But what can I say?  I do not like thank you cards that say something like:

Dear John,

Just wanted to thank you so much for the wonderful gift of the toaster you gave us at the wedding.  It really was something we both wanted and we really appreciate it.  Thanks for celebrating our special day with us.

Love, the Beevers


Nah, that's boring and while nice and to the point, I like to write something a little more personal to each guest.  So most of my cards looked something like this:

Hi, Omar & Tracy!

John and I just wanted to let you know what a joy it was to have you there celebrating our special day with us.  We had so much fun at our wedding and it looks like you both did, too from the photobooth pictures we saw!  I heard you saw an amazing trick the magician performed for you, too.  And I so appreciate the photos that you posted on Facebook to share with us.  We love them!  And we love you, too.  We were overwhelmed by your very generous gift of $100 to help make our honeymoon dreams come true.  We shared some pictures above to show you how great it was.  Hopefully we can get together soon to catch up.  Take care and thank you again so very much.

Stacey & John

Or for an actual gift, I would switch out the line about the honeymoon dreams with something like:

I can't tell you how grateful we were for the new Martha Stewart knife set you gave us.  We really needed a new set and I use it every single day...especially to slice the veggies for my famous garlic roasted potatoes that John loves.  We'll have to have you over for dinner some time to catch up.

Or you can switch out the line about the magician with something like "We loved seeing you tear it up on the dance floor which just made us enjoy ourselves so much more!"

So, what do you think, ladies?  Am I truly anal and an over achiever?  Because it takes me forever to write these out and my hand is killing me after only a few! 

TODAY'S WEDDING TIP:  Start writing thank you cards as soon after the wedding as you can..maybe even on your honeymoon while lounging on a beach somewhere?  I don't like the old idea that you have up to a year to send them out...but since it is a daunting task, I have allowed myself the option to only write 5 or 6 thank you cards each day or two (or three).  I started about a couple weeks ago and I seriously have about 85 cards to write!  UGH, thankfully, I've only got about 37 or so to go!

23 comments:

Hannah said...

I am TOTALLY stealing this idea. I <3 it and I <3 you! These are amazing and your guests will LOVE them!

redwhitebride said...

we didn't wait for the pro pics. we mailed our thank you cards before we left for honeymoon and then we sent postcards to each guest from our honeymoon. i love how you write, i think we wrote a bit shorter :)

Shannon said...

Your cards turned out great and I'm sure your guests got a kick out of getting them.

As I mentioned in my post Kristian actually wrote a good chunk of the thank you cards and his were very personal and funny...way better than the ones I wrote! :)

When we were in the airport in St. Lucia coming home I saw a bride writing her thank you cards while we all waited for the flight. Talk about pro-active!

Kim said...

You are definitely an overachiever, but this is a great post! I think thank-you notes are so so so important, and I would be thrilled to receive such a personal note from the couple showing that they truly enjoyed my gift to them. I am still waiting for like four thank-you notes from friends with bad manners . . . I'm not holding my breath since one of them was married over two years ago. Plus, she lives in Alaska and I couldn't make it to the wedding, so I have no idea whether she actually got my gift!

Heather said...

I love the messages you wrote, and also like the photo card ideas! We also tried to write very heartfelt, personal messages and include a photo of each guest with us at the wedding, or of us on our honeymoon, for those who gave Honeyfund gifts. And I’m a huge fan of Shutterfly, too. We’ve used it as our photo-share site, and it’s been so easy and affordable to order prints and make photo books using the pictures.

Mrs. Lopez said...

Love the thank you cards!

BigAppleNosh said...

That's a great thank you note! I'll have to refer back to this when it comes time to write ours :)

Chocolate Lover said...

I think your cards a beautifully written. Definitely an overachiever though :) I have to say, our guests won't be getting anywhere near as nice a thank you as yours.

Anonymous said...

What a cute thank-you card!!! Thanks for the great tip!

JEM - Aqua Bride said...

Oh wow, It would be nice to receive a card like that. I've used shutterfly for years now and absolutely love them.

Amberdawn said...

Great thank you note example!

Ali said...

I think you're doing the right thing by writing a heartfelt note to each guest. I agree with you, just saying thank you is not enough - it is important to actually tell them how much you appreciated them being there on your big day and how much you valued their present.

honey my heart said...

your thank you cards look amazing. love all of the photos you included!

GM said...

I think it's great that you try to make the thank you notes personal. I want to do the same, and I appreciate it when I receive notes like that.

I love your thank you card! We used Shutterfly to create photo holiday cards, using one of our engagement photos, and they came out great and were a big hit! I'd totally use Shutterfly again.

Morgan said...

Your thank you cards are so cute! I just finished making my cards last night, but we still have to actually write out the notes and mail them. My goal is to have them out before Monday, since that's our one month anniversary. I don't like the one year rule either!

Salt said...

The cards turned out beautifully and I love the collage that you put together for the inside! You and Mr. B are such an adorable couple!

I think that the format you are writing them in sounds great and very personal. Thank yous are one thing that I lucked out on...since our wedding was so small, I didn't have to do many!

A Los Angeles Love said...

The cards are great! Bu the best part is the message. I'm a huge fan of heartfelt, real thank you cards. I know your guests will really appreciate all the work.

Miss C said...

Thank you cards definitely mean more when it feels like they are actually written for the person you're sending it to, rather than just using a template. Love yours! ;)

The Southbay Newlyweds said...

yep, i wrote a nice paragraph too... took a lot of time..but i wanted them to know how much i appreciate them coming..and the gift.. i got our thanks out within the next month... i cant stand it when people take months to send a thank you out...

Em said...

Love the cards!! They turned out really nice :) I like to write a lot, too. And because I'm a freak I type them out before I write them in the actual cards so I don't mess up and have to scratch anything out. I love seeing examples of thank you note messages, too. I always get writers block when writing them. Definitely using these as "inspiration" for mine :)

Mrs T said...

Super cute cards. Your guests are going to very special receiving them.

Mo said...

Your cards turned out great!!
I'm a big fan of personalized thank you cards, and even though your hand hurts from writing, I'm sure your guests will really appreciate the extra time you took to write a personal note!

Gaynor {Our Day by Design} said...

Your cards are great; its so much nicer to write something more personal in them. I definately tried too as well, but the last few werent as good! ha ha!

I did have 92 to write though and finally finished them last night, just before 4 months! I was aiming for 3 but oh well, im blaming it on the fact we were away the first month, then I made each card by hand once I had the pro pics, then I had to write them all. Blog post to come at some point.

I now just need to write some for our suppliers.

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