A Couple Notes on Thank-you's

Now that I've told you all about the Castle honeymoon, I guess it's time to get back to wedding related things. I have plenty to share about before getting into official recaps but there is something that seems to be keeping me from finishing any of those posts... You see, I'm still working on finishing our thank you notes.

The first step was ordering them. We used a wedding photo for the front and a couple pictures from our honeymoon on the inside. We ordered them from shutterfly and I think they turned out really nice!

Personal Photo/ Front

Personal Photo/Inside

Next it was time to start writing! I've learned I'm actually pretty good at writing thank you notes. That is, until my hand starts cramping up after I write about ten. I'm not just being a sissy, it really hurts! It's probably because I write too fast and I'm a little out of practice in this paperless age. If I was writing thank you notes on my iPhone they would all be done by now. But alas they're not and I've got to get them done before I can move on to anything else!

I've come up with a sort of outline that I find helpful when writing our thank you cards. It helps speed up the process a bit. Sometimes I have a hard time coming up with what to say and I know I can't spend ten minutes contemplating each and every thank you note. So I searched some threads here on the boards, got some ideas and came up with a general outline for our thank-yous. Here's the opener I came up with:

"Thank you so much for being a part of our special day. We were so happy to have you there to celebrate with us."

Then I move onto something more personal and thank them for their gift.

"Thank you so much for the waffle maker! Mr. Castle has already made many waffle breakfasts for us. It's the perfect addition to our kitchen."

Then I come up with a closer. Depending on the relationship it's either really mushy or just very gracious.

"Thank you again so much!" or "Thanks again so much! We love you and miss you!"

Mr. Castle and I had a debate/argument on how to handle monetary gifts. We finally compromised and came up with this wording:

"Thank you so much for your generous gift. It will be a great help to us as we start our married life together."

Thank you cards can be stressful and cause stupid arguments... When it came to thanking people for honeyfund gifts there was no debate. They were the easiest to write! It was great to be able to tell them a little about our experience with the gift they gave us.

"Thank you so much for your contribution to our honeyfund. We had the most amazing dinner in Venice at our hotel's restaurant. We ate in the garden, which was beautiful, and the food was fantastic! Thank you so much for such a thoughtful gift!"

It makes it easier to have a little bit of a format in your head. Of course some thank you notes will be different depending on the relationship. I haven't even started on my bridesmaids because I know writing those will involve tears... and with certain guests I added something more specific like, "I loved dancing with you," or "I will always remember you saying, 'When did your wedding turn into a rave?' That made me laugh so hard!" (And yes someone did say that to me!) Thank you notes can be daunting but it's best to just bite the bullet, finish them and move on. In fact I better go finish some now!

But before I go finish, I do have one question for the hive: Do you think you should to send a thank you to people who didn't bring a gift? I know there have been many threads on this subject but I wanted a fresh opinion. Some people think the wedding favor, in our case a bottle of wine, was thank you enough. Others say etiquette requires you to send a thank you to everyone who attended. I'm still not sure how I feel about it. What do you think?

Poll: Should you send a thank you note to someone who did not give a gift?

option a) Yes, always!

option b) No, the favor was enough.