Aibu to hope for a thank you for wedding gift

[OfGurls]

Wedding was in September. I left gift with best man, as I assumed that's what I was supposed to do.
Other than a general thanks for all your gifts, in the wedding speeches, should I expect a card or phone call or something specific to me? What's the done thing these days?
Or should I check to see if couple even got it?

Sorry in advance for glowing with worthiness, but it was hard wired in me from birth to do thank you cards of some description. I can't cope with the thought of someone having chosen a gift for me that I don't acknowledge gratefully.

We only had a small wedding 20 couples total, so we coped with thank yous to each person and specific to what they gave us.

3 month rule for wedding thanks
4 week rule for Christmas and birthdays seems a reasonable rule of thumb

After that you probably won't get a thank you, the moment has passed, life moves on.

Although I did once get a thank you from someone on their first wedding anniversary which was

I always feel dreadful at these sort of threads. We didn't send out any thank you cards- my sister and I are by far the youngest cousins in our family so there were no family weddings when we were growing up as everyone who was going to get married had been married prior to me being born (also my family never did thank you cards following christmas/birthdays so I had never in my life heard of the concept of a 'thank you letter'.)

So the first weddings I went to were friends ones when I was in my 20s. No-one did thank you cards, they either thanked us on the day or put out a generic 'thank you all so much for the thoughtful gifts' style email. So when we got married we did the same.
Now I know our friends wont be bothered as that's how they approaches things as well but I always cringe whenever the topic comes up because clearly older relatives/family friends may have assumed we were being rude/ungrateful. And its been 6 years! So it would be totally weird to send them now.

So please dont assume people are being rude, it's honestly not always the case.

Could be MatildasMum, was the best man speech at yours painting the groom fairly negatively too?

Candlestick Thinking that it is more important to send someone a picture of yourself than it is to express your gratitude to them in a timely manner? Yes, I think narcissism is the right word.

Three months is timely Sailaway, as has been pointed out to you many times.

Agree with hissy

I did my thank you cards as soon as I received the gifts. I kept a log on my computer of who had given what and if I'd sent a thank you card.
They were just ordinary thank you cards, no photos or anything. I wrote a personal message to everyone and to those who'd given money/vouchers, they got two thank you cards! One to say thank you for the money/vouchers and another when we'd bought something, to tell them what we'd spent their gift on.

There were two colleagues who got married around the same time. Not a thank you card from either of them, either to individuals or to the staff as a whole, who'd given the three of us a very generous gift each.
I brought in some lovely treats for the staffroom along with a thank you card.
TBH I was embarrassed for the other two. It didn't seem to cross their minds that they should have given a card at the very least.
And I brought it up in conversation a few times e.g. "Oh, I'm still doing my thank you cards. It's so important to thank people properly." Etc etc
Didn't crack a light!

If you can organise a weddding, then you're not too busy to thank the people who gave you gifts!!!! IMO.

(And I'm not particularly impressed by photo thank you cards that have a generic thank you on them. I'd rather a personal, handwritten note which mentions the gift I've given. And I was working full time when I got married; back at work on the Monday.)

you all know that cards aren't necessary don't you? You can write a note on notepaper, just a few lines saying thanks for the gift and a few words about how you enjoyed the day and blah blah - i

sailawaywithme the acceptable etiquette is 3 months. The fact you seemingly think people should ignore what is objectively socially acceptable and pander to your individual personal preference is far closer to narcissism than a bride and groom wanting to send a nice photocard.

Candlestick You clearly don't really know what narcissism is, do you?

Never mind. I stand by my assertion that the bride and groom are both rude and narcissistic. Ho hum.

sailawaywithme I believe the definition of narcissism to go beyond one's appearance and relate, for example, to an unreasonable obsession with oneself to believe the world revolves around them. Anyway, whatever, that's semantics. You are of course entitled to your opinion as to when and how people should send thank you cards but IMO it is unreasonable not to cut any slack to a B&G to recognise they are conforming to commonly accepted standards of politeness, just not to your personal higher standards. I'm not married but would hope my wedding guests will be slightly less keen to stick the knife into me than you seem to be into couples who considered you a good enough friend to invite to their wedding.

franciscrawford Maybe it is a generational thing then? I have never heard of the approach you describe. I agree with you about "busy lives" as an excuse. People made time in their busy lives to buy a gift and go to the wedding. The issue with photos is people are waiting for the professional ones. Even the digital ones of those can take a while. Matter of opinion whether it is a good idea to wait for them - I love to receive photo cards and have all of mine kept in a nice box somewhere. I respect that others want any old card as long as it comes sooner. Fair enough. It's accusations of narcissism which I think are totally uncalled for.

Personally I like cards with a wedding picture on. I can't always be bothered fighting to try and get a picture of the bride & groom on the day (especially as I'm crap at taking photos), so it's nice to have one.

Also, when I got married we asked the photographer to take a photo of every couple/family group as they arrived at the venue. I then included this photo in the thank you card. I've also received photos of myself at weddings in the thank you cards. So it's not always just the bride and groom photo they're waiting on!

Thing is, expectations change and are different amongst different groups. My peer group all waited for photos, designed nice cards, wrote a substantial message and took their time. That is the norm within my social circle.

A shop bought, 'thank you for the x' effort would have seemed somewhat half arsed in comparison.

People's expectations and priorities are different. I trust that brides/grooms know their own guests better than random commentators on the Internet.

You don't need to wait for photos - just write the substantial letter.

Cards are a bit arriviste.

Photos were briefly useful, if you got them back in time, but now that everyone brings their own camera, they're totally redundant and therefore a pretty crap reason to delay.

Letters really should be written as soon as the present is received. That's why the older (and sadly moribund) tradition of sending presents before the wedding was so practical and useful.

Those received on the day still need to prompt thanks. If going on honeymoon directly from the reception, then within days of return. Otherwise in the days after the wedding itself.

Then it's done, and you don't have to think about it again.

I did, when we returned from a long honeymoon, absolutely. I recognise that people spend a fortune attending any wedding. Outfits for the entire family, the present, cost of getting there, hotels/B&B stay costs, etc.
However, we had this problem recently and wondered whether the bride and groom actually got the gift!? We asked the parents, as we weee concerned, as it was cash for their honeymoon. We received a card shortly after!
However, we soon found out that the happy couple had actually split up on honeymoon, which obviously made the 'honeymoon' quite strained!
No wonder... 🙄🙄🙄

We don t want photos of you, we just want a few lines saying you got the present.

Stop faffing and get on with it.

I got married in 2002 and I had a showing of the presents and I'm Scottish.
I had it at my mums house and all the woman I the family came to see what we got. We wrote down each gift as we opened it to keep a track of who gave us what. Made is easier to write a wee thank you note.

Here in Scotland we also have the 'bottom drawer' . Basically when I was going to move out of my parents to live with my now husband my mum and nana etc. Would buy wee things like hand towels, mugs etc. For my bottom drawer. Wee bits and bobs to start us of in our first home.