While my husband and I were completing thank you cards for our wedding, my husband recalled a wedding he attended 4 years ago.
Instead of thank you cards, the Groom sent out a mass text message to his guests the day after his wedding, stating something along the lines of, “Thanks everyone for coming out, it was great seeing you.”
No formal thank you cards were ever sent out. Just that text message. I am not sure how people who do not own a cell phone were thanked. 0328-14
If the bride and groom has circulated through the guests during the reception thanking them in person for coming, there would be no need for an impersonal text message blasted to everyone.
As for the lack of a thank you note, expect to see more of this kind of belief that people are entitled to receive wedding gifts and that guests have an obligation to endow them with materials goods. Kings and queens don’t bow to plebeian expressions of gratitude when their inferiors bestow upon them what they view as rightly theirs in the first place.
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This ‘no thank you note’ must be a trend, because my husband and I went to two weddings last year, and have yet to receive a thank you from either of them.
The two couples in question are lovely people, but young, and I presume they subscribe to the ‘you have a year to get out your thank yous’ thing, which is annoying, and one couple are fast approaching their 1 year anniversary (April) so they are running out of time.
Alas!! This must be the way of the world.
At least you and your spouse are writing your ‘thank you’ cards.
Ugh. That’s not okay.
I had a really weird one. I couldn’t attend the wedding, but sent them some things off of their registry. I had never met the groom, they had sent out the invites a week before the wedding (Complete with TWO registries listed), I am out of town, yadda yadda. So they call me as soon as they receive the gift to thank me. I say “They”, as the bride put her husband on the phone and made him talk to me- and me to him. I have never met or spoken to this man, and needless to say- It was so absolutely awkward. And long. I never got a note. Are awkward phone calls sufficient?
Ugh, this is my current pet peeve. As of last month, in the last year we have attended (and provided generous gifts for) seven weddings, four 30th birthdays, a very expensive hen weekend and a baby shower. We’ve received thank-you cards from four wedding couples – not a peep from anyone else, unless you count mass thank-yous in Facebook statuses. Which I don’t, frankly. We were married a year ago and managed to get individually handwritten thank-you cards to over 100 guests within 6 weeks of the wedding. It’s making me obstreperous!
Actually, Kings and Queens do thank people who give them gifts. Ask anyone who sent a wedding gift to Will and Kate, or any gift, ever, to The Queen. Every single person got a thank-you note. In fact, when The Queen was married, many women sent her ration coupons towards the making of her dress and silk pantyhose as wedding gifts – she returned them with a personal note of thanks for the thoughtful gesture.
I generally don’t get thank you notes. It’s why I don’t give cash. If I give a check, at least I know it’s cashed.
You were never thanked for your gift. You were thanked for your attendance. I would casually mention that I had given them X for a gift. “I was wondering if you had received it ?”
I have never received a thank you note for a gift for a wedding I attended over a year ago. At this point, I have no idea if the couple even ever received it! It was a card with a store gift certificate enclosed that I put in the pile of gifts (it was at the grooms parent’s house), so I hope that it didn’t get lost somewhere. There was no basket to put cards in. But this is the umpteenth time either myself or someone I know has experienced not getting a wedding gift thank you note. I’m sad to see such rudeness now become a popular trend. God forbid you NOT get a wedding present for a couple, but I guess you’re not entitled to a thank you note anymore nowadays…..
I went to a wedding in November and have not yet recieved a Thank You for attending/for the gift. The couple asked for cash for their honeymoon rather than gifts (more than acceptable in my opinion), we gave a generous amount considering we are a couple of years younger than the newlyweds. The groom will be our Best Man next year, and I would never say anything, but secretly wish I could slip it into conversation!
The annoying part is that the couple actually recieved over and above what they had expected, and are able to go on a much nicer honeymoon than previously planned – this will also be the couples first holiday together as they often have money problems (not their fault). I was thrilled to hear they would be going somewhere extra special thanks to ours and other guests gifts, but a little miffed we’ve not had a proper ‘thank you’.
I’m forever taking grief from people for writing thank-you notes. I don’t get that. It just seems obvious that you should actually thank people for doing things for you. It’s been a while since I’ve attended a wedding, but I’ve always gotten formal thank-you notes in the past.
I also have encountered the no thank you note situation for wedding gifts I’ve sent. I don’t go to many weddings, but it’s been forever since I’ve received a thank you note for a wedding gift I’ve sent. For instance, I attended a wedding a year ago and have never received a thank you note for the gift certificate I gave them. I have no idea if they even ever received it! A previous time, I actually asked the bride, who was my cousin, if they’d received my gift. She said they had, but had just received so many presents that it was impossible to keep track of. She’s a very decent, nice, polite person, too, not the type that would do rude things like that.
I’ve come to the conclusion that today’s couples are just getting more and more narcissistic nowadays, sadly. They have a million excuses as to why they can’t be bothered to send thank you notes for gifts received, and their excuses are very valid according to them. The, “we don’t have time with all we’ve been dealing with wedding/marriage-wise” varied-type excuse is the biggest one. Well, your guests made the time to buy you a present, so you can find a way to make the time to properly thank them!
This is when modern technology is uesed badly!
My stepmother wouldn’t let me do ANYTHING as a child/young adult (like watch TV) until I had written thank-you notes. This may be why I am scrupulous about it. I mean, how hard is it? We ordered thank-you cards when we ordered invitations, place cards, and the other stationery. We got some checks and some gifts before the wedding, and just wrote TY notes then. A few a day each day after the wedding – voila! Done!
Modern technology can make hand-written TY notes a lot easier too! We used theknot.com or something to organize our addresses/invitations/rsvps/dinner choices, etc. When we got a gift, I just stuck it on there and put check marks next to each person after sending them a note. It made it easy to keep track of who sent what (so we could say “thanks for the great salad bowl – now that summer is approaching we’re really looking forward to filling it with farmer’s market finds!” or whatever), and then their address was right there. I was 39 at the time – is it a generation thing? The fact that my stepmother was a fanatic about it?