Bad Bride

Thanks for all the lovely Gifts! 

For some reason I thought I had up to a year to send out Thank You cards after our wedding.  After the frantic build up to the wedding and all the organizing that goes into that I couldn't even think about Thank You cards right away.  I needed a break!  I wasn't going to take a whole year of course but it was nice to know that I didn't have to rush right into it.  Then, I started googling wedding etiquette and found that I was actually a bad bride for waiting even this long. 

According to essortment.com, It’s impolite to procrastinate and send your thank you notes out late. They shouldn’t be put in the mail any more than two weeks after you return from your honeymoon. If you receive your wedding gift before the big day, it would be best to post an acknowledgement immediately. No matter when the gift was received, however, one must never wait longer than a month.

Oops.  My wedding was July 10th-almost 3 months ago.  I kept searching for a site that would tell me I had a year so I could move myself out of the impolite bride category but alas I did not.  I promptly or not so promptly as it were ordered my Thank You cards last month which was two months post wedding.  They've been sitting in my closet for the last two weeks so I finally pulled them out this past weekend and got down to business.  It's definitely less work then doing invitations.  Not everyone you invite comes to your wedding and not everyone that comes buys you a gift.  There is also less assembling which is less time, but there is a heck of a lot more writing.  They must be personalized.  That's one rule I won't break.  I used Vistaprint.com and they only cost me $41.14 for 40 including delivery.  Their standard delivery is 21 days.  Even they refer to it as "slow."  They did ship early but with a 21 day expected delivery it's still late if you asked me, which was actually mostly fine seeing as how I obviously was not in any rush to do this.  Seeing their Thank You cards made me even gladder that we didn't use them for our invitations.  I used one of the few mostly Pink and Black patterns they had.  I got them personalized with our names on the front and a small black and white picture from our wedding day photo session inside but overall they are a bit flimsy.  No embossing on the print and just not the quality that I wanted for our invites but just fine for Thank You cards.

So now they are addressed and impolitely sitting inside the drawer of our coffee table.  They will definitely be mailed out before we take off on our honeymoon at the end of the month, which was always the original plan.  The rules of etiquette does say two weeks after your honeymoon but I'm assuming they meant a honeymoon taken right after your wedding day and not 3 1/2 months later!

11 comments

  1. I've heard of the - you have a year for the present but I didn't know about the Thank Yous.

    I'm sorry to hear you were dissapointed in Vistaprint. We used them for our STD's and loved them. We plan on using them for our thank yous too but we're still waiting on pro pics. Our STDs only took about 8days from ordering to our doorstep, and we didn't pay for rush shipping we were really pleased - I might rethink it now.

    Ours will DEF be very late by the standards you mentioned. We have to write over 100 of them and it's going to take forever.

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  2. Dancy-Well, 21 days was fine since I was already procrastinating I guess! And the quality is OK for anything but invites. That's just my opinion though! I don't want to offend anyone who may have used them for invites. Wow! You got over 100 gifts! You did have a bigger wedding though. You def won't be able to do them all in one sitting.

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  3. It's not like you weren't going to do it. I think alot of people understand that there is still alot going on even after the wedding.

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  4. I think you are just fine. I sent mine right away but I had hardly any to send since we had a small wedding. At least you are sending them, I have been to some weddings, took the time to purchase a gift and never received a thank you!

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  5. I've heard the 1 year rule as well, but I don't remember where. But I'm sure your family and friends are not watching their mailboxes, timing the arrival of your thank you card, lol.

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  6. i've never heard the 1 yr rule. i always thought the sooner you send them out the better.

    i don't think you are too bad though. just get them out of your house, lol.

    i went to a wedding ending of last year and i am still waiting for a thank you card. not cool.

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  7. I thought it there was a one year rule too!

    Not-so-funny-story - I wrote more than 300 thank you notes and tasked my husband with mailing them. Guess what I found about 3 years ago in his bathroom drawer? About 30 unmailed cards.

    Frankly, I'm surprised we didn't get divorced over that.

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  8. I don't think you're bad. I think it's quite common to do them late. I've never received a thank you card within a month after a wedding. Birthdays and baby showers maybe but not a wedding. Too much thought goes into those things these days.

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  9. I'm sure you're fine! Most people totally understand that it's crazy busy after a wedding, so don't sweat it : ) Hope your day is nothing short of perfection, gorgeous girl!

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  10. Thanks guys...I feel much better. This month is A OK to get them out.

    Ameena-that is some story. All those thank you cards sitting in a drawer somewhere. My gosh!!! I'd have been so mad.

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  11. I thought you had a year too...? You're okay, as long as they go out at some point.

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