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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Thank you cards

19 replies

Kiwiinkits · 21/01/2010 00:06

More like an 'IHBU'?

We're getting married in two weeks. Both very excited about it. It is a reasonably formal affair (100 guests, sit down dinner, band etc). We wanted to do things a bit differently, so we sent out our invitations by way of an email with a link to a website, which had all of the information about the wedding on it. The site was really cool - we spent a long time on it. We got lots of compliments on it. We went down the e-invite route because we couldn't really be bothered finding everyone's addresses and we didn't want people to go through the hassle of posting back RSVPs.

This morning I mentioned I wanted to post out "Thank You" cards after the wedding. FH reacted badly to this as he thinks it's me "keeping up with the Joneses". He thinks it would be perfectly acceptable, and a lot easier, to send out an email to our guests saying "thanks for coming, thanks for the lovely gift and here's a link to our photographs online."

I am nervous about this. I really am grateful that people are coming from all over the place for our wedding. I'd hate to come across as ungrateful or rude to our friends. Equally, I can see FH's point.

WWYD?

OP posts:

blithedance · 21/01/2010 00:10

Seems to me that a nicely worded email thank you would be fine, have received similar myself. Especially after the e-invite! You may want to send cards to a few grannies/aunties though.

If you have a good knees up at the wedding people are unlikely to write you off just because of thank you cards.

displayuntilbestbefore · 21/01/2010 00:11

Well I wouldn't have sent e-invites tbh and given that you say you couldn't be bothered to find everyone's addresses, you should be especially grateful if your guests can be bothered to look at your wedding list and buy you a present!
Sounds like you want the wedding without any hard work but you risk coming across as not very interested in your guests or in thanking them properly.
I certainly don't think an e-mail is a decent enough thank you to people who have travelled to share your day and given you presents.
There are tines when conforming to social etiquette is the best way to go - this is one of them. Go with your instincts, your FH is being lazy.

Original poster

Kiwiinkits · 21/01/2010 00:14

Surprise surprise, I just found this link which touches on the same subject
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/897064-Are-we-losing-the-art-of-thank-y ou-cards-letters

OP posts:

displayuntilbestbefore · 21/01/2010 00:17

I thought that thread must have made you think about your own plans.
You'll see on that thread I advocate making the effort to write to people instead of taking the lazy easy option

Original poster

Kiwiinkits · 21/01/2010 02:14

Anyone else care to share their 2 cents? Big dilemma here.

OP posts:

ClaudiaSchiffer · 21/01/2010 02:47

I am super-traditional about the whole thank you thing.

I totally get that your e-invites were fab and the website was totally great etc etc but unless all your guests are funky Gen Y's I would be a bit miffed to received an email thankyou - particularly a generic one.

Come on - people will have spent a lot of time/thought/money/effort into buying you a gift and an email thankyou seems a bit sloppy to me.

Astrophe · 21/01/2010 04:04

I think I'd go with posted thank yous too. Certainly do NOT just send a generic email. If you do decide to do emails, make them personal, and make them special with one of those sites where you can add video and pictures and make an 'online card' type thing.

FWIW generic cards saying 'thanks for coming anod for your kind gift" don't cut the mustard either, even when posted. I think you need to make a personal thank you, saying what you appreciated about the gift and their attendance. HTH

gtamom · 21/01/2010 04:18

Congratulations on your upcoming wedding!

I think it really nice to receive a thank-you card in the mail.
Hopefully you will only have one wedding, and never need to worry about all this again, until your own children get married some day. day!
Just do a few a day and the 100 will be do in no time.

ceres · 21/01/2010 06:35

i also think thank you cards should be sent in the post and be handwritten - generic pre-printed cards come accross as lazy amd impersonal to me. i think the same is true of a thank you e-mail.

i don't have a problem with e-mailed invitations, but i think traditional etiquette should apply when it comes to thank yous. handwritten, personal and posted.

enjoy your wedding!

littledawley · 21/01/2010 06:57

Another vote here for handwritten thank-you cards. When I got married we both wrote in the cards, I wrote about how much we had enjoyed the day and thanks for the gift then DH wrote a sentence or two about our honeymoon, we both then signed them. Yes, they took a while but they were all posted within two weeks of returning from honeymoon and so many people phoned up to thank us for the thank-you cards!!!

Vivia · 21/01/2010 11:36

You couldn't be bothered finding addresses for your guests but they have to travel to wedding (including accommodation for some, childcare arrangements and so on for some guests?) and buy gifts and perhaps buy new outfits? Jesus. Plus wedding websites are tacky as hell.

isoldeone · 21/01/2010 14:19

i'd vote for handwritten letters of thanks.

because I bet otherwise your mil and dm will never hear the end of it from those not familiar with email websites... and then you will get it in the neck for eons after that.

I chose a photographer who had a website so that family could choose any photos they wanted. I ended up sorting most of the prints for them and dealing with the photographer myself as they could not cope with ordering them this way / even looking at them.

noone will look at the website in the years to come. sorry. great auntie madge will keep the little thank you letter with a piccie on the front and so would I tbh.

plenty of photos end up on facebook anyway for those on the internet vibe. facebook lasts a bit longer. I occaisionally flip through the photo albums on there - ones I made and other folkses. Theres a place for these. I would not keep going back to your website tbh

I'm young and I prefer to get something in the mail.

stationers sell plain good quality cards and envelopes 100 = £5. Pop a minature pass port sized photo of your fav photo from the day on the front (average homecomputer can do this or go down any high street developer)
keep your handwriting nice and big and keep it personal - set a side an afternoon and I GUARANTEE you will reap the benefits in the years to come.

emsyj · 21/01/2010 14:23

I think handwritten thank yous are the norm when it comes to weddings and it will offend the older guests if they don't receive one. They like displaying them at home, showing them to friends/neighbours/the postman etc and let's face it, for most people it's enjoyable to receive something through the post that isn't a bill. I wouldn't go for e-thank yous personally. It smacks of 'we couldn't be bothered'.

Merrylegs · 21/01/2010 14:33

I don't think your FH has a point, actually. You must post thank you cards. It is terribly rude not to. And get him to do half, otherwise you are setting a precedent here and I fully expect to see your post on AIBU in a few years time...

"AIBU to expect DH to remember his family's birthdays? Why is it always me who has to send the cards to his mother/sister/aunty?"

isoldeone · 21/01/2010 14:33

plus ( sorry) you could also point out to you FH that...

having sit down dinners and bands are in a lot of peoples book "keeping up with the joneses"

am amazed that all your guests have e-mail addresses. I had to hunt down peoples up to date email adddresses to get their land addresses.

OTOH : if your veggies all returned their preferences, everyone has the accomodation booked/ knows the taxi numbers / printed the directions to the church/ reception then you will do much better than I did on paper- half the time people were ringing/ gettting lost at the ( literally) last minute and could not sort themselves out.

have a lovely day whatever! congrats in advance

displayuntilbestbefore · 21/01/2010 22:03

Sending out formal written invitations is more than just about asking people,to come to your wedding. Years on, I enjoy looking through all the handwritten replies we got from guests saying how much they were looking forward to coming to join us on our special day. We also had letters after the wedding from people saying what a lovely wedding it was and how much they had enjoyed it and although I'm not usually someone who gets sentimental about things, I have kept all these letters/cards in a box and every so often have a read through them again and it reminds me what a great time we had and how lucky we are to have such lovely family and friends to share our wedding celebrations with.
So even if you didn't send out handwritten invitations, if you send handwritten thank you letters to people who came and people who bought you a gift, you might end up with some similar letters and look back in years to come and be glad you made the effort.

PureAsTheColdDrivenSnow · 21/01/2010 22:06

email, IMO, would be fine, as long as you attach a picture of you both at the wedding, and make sure send one for each guest, rather than forwarding a random thank you to everybody.

On the other hand, it won't be any more work to send out thank you notes. You probably know the addresses for most people, and if you don't it'll just take a quick email to find them out.

StrictlyKatty · 21/01/2010 22:12

Send thank you cards. Emails make people took cheap/stingy IMO. A cars shows real effort and thought.

cat64 · 21/01/2010 22:21

This reply has been deleted

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