Mailed shower gift - to whom do I address thank you(s)?

anjuli116

I received a lovely gift from our registry in the mail today. Given the timing, I am pretty sure this was intended to be a shower gift from an aunt who cannot make it to the bridal shower. My question is, to whom do I address the thank you card(s)? The packing slip listed my aunt's name, but the little card said "We wish you...." and did not have any names. Do I include my uncle and their sons in the thank you for what is presumably a shower gift (this isn't going to be a couples shower, so no men were invited). Alternatively, the "we" might have been meant to include my Grandmother, who will also not be able to make it to the shower, and lives with said aunt's oldest son.

In trying to figure this out and searching the forums, I discovered I already broke one rule I didn't know about by opening the gift right away and not waiting for the shower. Yikes! I don't want to commit any more violations here.

huskypuppy14

anjuli116 said:

I received a lovely gift from our registry in the mail today. Given the timing, I am pretty sure this was intended to be a shower gift from an aunt who cannot make it to the bridal shower. My question is, to whom do I address the thank you card(s)? The packing slip listed my aunt's name, but the little card said "We wish you...." and did not have any names. Do I include my uncle and their sons in the thank you for what is presumably a shower gift (this isn't going to be a couples shower, so no men were invited). Alternatively, the "we" might have been meant to include my Grandmother, who will also not be able to make it to the shower, and lives with said aunt's oldest son.

In trying to figure this out and searching the forums, I discovered I already broke one rule I didn't know about by opening the gift right away and not waiting for the shower. Yikes! I don't want to commit any more violations here.

You can open the gift right away, there is no such rule about waiting for the shower. Sorry, but if I receive something in the mail, I'm opening it. 

For who to address the thank you to, I would include the Aunt's husband as well at the very least. I usually give shower gifts just from me, but I'm not married yet either. I do know I've been to showers where the bride thanked both the woman in attendance and her husband, because the gift had both their names on the tag.

phira

@anjull116 I'm not sure you're breaking etiquette by not waiting for the shower. By sending a thank-you now, you're letting your aunt know that the gift arrived.

anjuli116

Oh good! Thanks for the insight! When I was looking for an answer, the most relevant previous discussion I found consisted mostly of girls lamenting that the gifts that came in the mail were taunting them because various people told them they had to wait until the shower. Now I feel better about tearing through that paper so quickly.

I suppose I'll address the card to my aunt, uncle, and three boys. The oldest one is just out of college, but I feel like it would be weird to separate him from the other two. I'm guessing it's okay to assume my Grandma was not involved unless told otherwise.

Teddy917

You should open all gifts immediately to make sure they're not broken and so you can write a thank you immediately.

photokitty

I would thank them all for the gift in case if is your wedding gift and not just for the shower. I would not refer to it as a shower gift, bc if it is your wedding gift it could come off as gift grabby.

AprilH81

You can also call/email/text your aunt for clarification. 

"Hi Aunt!  I received your gift yesterday and I'm working on the thank you note.  Since the note card says "we" I wanted to see who all chipped in so I can send everyone a thank you note. See you soon!"

phira

Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, if a gift isn't brought to the shower itself, it's not a shower gift. Obviously, there are exceptions--if your aunt had called you and said, "You'll receive a package from [company] in the mail--let me know that you got it, but don't open it till the shower!" then I guess okay (although what if you're receiving tons of gifts from the same store and wouldn't know which one is the one you can't open? Arg!). But yeah, you're definitely not wrong for opening a gift to make sure it's not broken and to write a thank-you.

rmueller89

phira said:

Yeah, as far as I'm concerned, if a gift isn't brought to the shower itself, it's not a shower gift. Obviously, there are exceptions--if your aunt had called you and said, "You'll receive a package from [company] in the mail--let me know that you got it, but don't open it till the shower!" then I guess okay (although what if you're receiving tons of gifts from the same store and wouldn't know which one is the one you can't open? Arg!). But yeah, you're definitely not wrong for opening a gift to make sure it's not broken and to write a thank-you.

I would question that a little, my Aunt wasn't able to make it to my shower & she sent me a gift for my shower because she wanted to. I still received something from her at the wedding....

I would thank everyone in the family. We typically means the family.

anjuli116

Thanks for all the really solid advice! @photokitty: I definitely wouldn't refer to it as a shower gift, because I agree it would look gift-grabby. I think you and @phira are right. Absent evidence to the contrary, I should just treat anything that comes in the mail as a straight-up wedding gift from the family associated with the packing slip.

An update on this instance: I hadn't mentioned the gift to anyone yet, but I got a text from my mom today saying "Shower gift was from Aunt X and Grandma. Aunt X sent me a message to say she forgot to write that on the card." So I guess they did consider it a shower gift, and it was from Grandma as well after all. My standard MO would be to write the thank you note to whomever was listed on the card, so I'm thinking one to Aunt X and one to Grandma.

I gotta run to the post office to buy stamps, so there's still time to stop me if that's wrong. :-) This is the first wedding-related gift we've received, so I'm still new at this.

KeptInStitches

I think separate thank-yous to Aunt X and Grandma would be just fine in this case.