Wedding Etiquette Forum

How long do newlyweds have to send out thank you cards?

How long do newlyweds have to send out thank you cards? My husband and I and my mother and father sent wedding gifts to a family friend's
daughter when she married in May. Both groups have yet to receive a thank you card. When speaking on the phone with my mother recently she mentioned this. I said that I thought newlyweds had at least a year to send them out. Is that right? It doesn't bother me but my mother is a stickler for receiving thank you cards and sending them out herself.
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Re: How long do newlyweds have to send out thank you cards?

  • blues28 said:
    How long do newlyweds have to send out thank you cards? My husband and I and my mother and father sent wedding gifts to a family friend's
    daughter when she married in May. Both groups have yet to receive a thank you card. When speaking on the phone with my mother recently she mentioned this. I said that I thought newlyweds had at least a year to send them out. Is that right? It doesn't bother me but my mother is a stickler for receiving thank you cards and sending them out herself.

    There isn't a specific timeline, but the sooner the better. I usually expect to get them within 2 months of the wedding.
  • Well I guess that's good to know. I was just curious. When I told my mother that I thought they had a year she seemed less irritated. Let's see if we get a card in a year.
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  • I start side eye-ing people at 6 weeks. I just think a year is super lazy and honestly ungrateful. People spend time, energy and money to give a gift, the least you can do is spend $1 and three minutes thanking them for it. 
  • Don't count on getting one. They normally go out within 2 months, if they haven't it's 99% chance there won't be one. 
    I can't believe how many people don't do them...in the last year I've gone to 2 baby showers and 1 wedding where I didn't receive a thank you. 

    Honestly, I find it inconsiderate when people even take a month or two. I got back from my honeymoon Monday, wrote them Tuesday, had them in the mail Wednesday. I think if you can't sit and carve out like one hour of your time for MONTHS, you're just lazy. I know people are busy but come on- lunch hour, nighttime tv or reading, weekends, there's ample time. But maybe I'm just too Type A for my own good. 

                                                                     

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  • blues28blues28 member
    First Anniversary Name Dropper 5 Love Its First Comment
    edited September 2014
    I understand what you're saying. I just meant that when I said  I thought they had at least a year it made my mother less upset. I wrote out my thank you notes and had them sent out about 2 weeks after our wedding, but we didn't have that many guests. Like I said these things don't really irritate me. It's nice to receive a thank you note from someone after sending a gift, but I probably only recieve one half the time. 
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  • I don't understand how people can not feel guilty about having a gift in their possession that they have not yet expressed thanks for.  I won't even use a gift until I've sent out the thank you card.  This year, I got really sick around my birthday and some family from out of town sent me gifts.  I was basically housebound for two weeks (and out of stamps) and wouldn't let myself touch those gifts until I was well enough to go out and mail thank you cards (I did open them right away and informally thanked them and let them know they were received via email though so they weren't wondering about that, but I didn't use them until the cards went out). 
  • If you haven't received one by now for a wedding that happened in May, don't count on getting one.

    I think 4-5 months was the longest it took to receive a thank you note.  My now husband and I rolled our eyes when we finally got it (there was a picture from the wedding with the note), but at least they sent one. 


    I start side eyeing after 2 months. It should not take that long.
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  • No, the concept that newlyweds have a year to send out thank you notes is erroneous.  It seems to be based on confusion with the idea that people have a year to send newlyweds gifts (which is valid).  But thank-you notes must be sent ASAP.

    In practical terms, that ASAP is probably about six weeks to two months.  If I haven't received a thank-you note from a couple by then, allowing for their honeymoon, I'd side-eye that.
  • I really don't even understand how this false impression even caught on in the first place. A whole YEAR to write and send "thank you so much for (x)! Spouse and I appreciate your generosity so much and had a wonderful time celebrating with you at the wedding." Come on.

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  • jellybeannjellybeann member
    First Anniversary 5 Love Its First Comment Name Dropper
    edited September 2014
    FI and I have friends who got married in May and June and they still have yet to send us a thank you card for either of our gifts. One of the couples mentioned it, saying they were waiting to get thank you cards with their pictures on them *eyeroll* and that "they had a year to send them out so it's no big deal" *even bigger eyeroll*. If we weren't at dinner with a large group of friends I may have said something but I didn't want to be snarky.

    I don't understand it.

    ETF words
  • I think within 6-7 weeks is reasonable. Anything past that, I would assume it didn't or won't happen.
  • I would realistically give the couple at least 6 weeks after the honeymoon, if that is right after the wedding. 
  • This is reminding me that I have still not received a thank you for the wedding I attended in July. 

    Hm.

    I do have the world's shittiest post office, so I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. This is a dear friend so I'd like to believe the best of him, but it's still just a little icky not to be thanked.
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    This baby knows exactly how I feel
  • We attended 8 weddings this summer. I've received 3 thank you notes. Now, 3 of the weddings were in the last 6 weeks, so to be fair, I'm holding out hope for those.

    The best was a wedding I went to in June. My parents were also invited. They gave the couple the K-cup machine they registered for and some accessories to go with it. They texted ME a picture of coffee cups with coffee in them and asked if I could pass along a thank you to my parents. Um, no. My parents never got a TY note and from them and neither did H and I for the gift we gave. 
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  • SachaBee said:
    I would realistically give the couple at least 6 weeks after the honeymoon, if that is right after the wedding. 
    This.  Momma Slothie was really urging us to write our thank yous on the plane, which would've been a great idea, but we left so quickly, that we didn't even have a chance to open up all our gifts before leaving.  We were gone for about two weeks, and then got all of them out about two weeks after that.  Personally, I was embarrassed that it took us that long (I was raised that you have one week to write a note, otherwise you give it back), but hopefully most people understood.
    Anniversary

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  • We attended 8 weddings this summer. I've received 3 thank you notes. Now, 3 of the weddings were in the last 6 weeks, so to be fair, I'm holding out hope for those.

    The best was a wedding I went to in June. My parents were also invited. They gave the couple the K-cup machine they registered for and some accessories to go with it. They texted ME a picture of coffee cups with coffee in them and asked if I could pass along a thank you to my parents. Um, no. My parents never got a TY note and from them and neither did H and I for the gift we gave. 
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  • H and I got a thank you note a year to the day the wedding was held.  At that point the thank you was meaningless.  I don't care how busy or crazy your life is but to not get thank yous out for a full year is completely ridiculous.

  • H and I got a thank you note a year to the day the wedding was held.  At that point the thank you was meaningless.  I don't care how busy or crazy your life is but to not get thank yous out for a full year is completely ridiculous.
    Serious question - would you just as soon not get one at all? 

    I'm 100% with you that I don't care how busy someone is... Even the President of the United States can probably find time to write a thank you note. There's no excuse. Like ever. But, at what point are you like "eh, this is meaningless"? 
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  • H and I got a thank you note a year to the day the wedding was held.  At that point the thank you was meaningless.  I don't care how busy or crazy your life is but to not get thank yous out for a full year is completely ridiculous.
    Serious question - would you just as soon not get one at all? 

    I'm 100% with you that I don't care how busy someone is... Even the President of the United States can probably find time to write a thank you note. There's no excuse. Like ever. But, at what point are you like "eh, this is meaningless"? 
    I had a couple write a thank-you note a year & a half later.  It included a sincere apology (no excuses).  Honestly, I would rather get the note.  I'm in the "better late than never" camp.
  • H and I got a thank you note a year to the day the wedding was held.  At that point the thank you was meaningless.  I don't care how busy or crazy your life is but to not get thank yous out for a full year is completely ridiculous.
    Serious question - would you just as soon not get one at all? 

    I'm 100% with you that I don't care how busy someone is... Even the President of the United States can probably find time to write a thank you note. There's no excuse. Like ever. But, at what point are you like "eh, this is meaningless"? 
    I had a couple write a thank-you note a year & a half later.  It included a sincere apology (no excuses).  Honestly, I would rather get the note.  I'm in the "better late than never" camp.
    I agree with better late than never.  In the year in between my gifting them something for their wedding and my getting the TY note, I haven't given them any other gifts, be it Christmas, Birthday, or Baby Shower.  So, after getting the super late note, they'll again be put on my Okay To Gift list.  Depending on how often I normally gift them and whether or not they put two and two together, they may get on the ball and keep the TY notes coming.
  • A friend of mine found her not-yet-completed check list of thank yous 7 years after her wedding. She sent them along with a profuse apology.

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  • SachaBee said:
    I would realistically give the couple at least 6 weeks after the honeymoon, if that is right after the wedding. 
    This.  Momma Slothie was really urging us to write our thank yous on the plane, which would've been a great idea, but we left so quickly, that we didn't even have a chance to open up all our gifts before leaving.  We were gone for about two weeks, and then got all of them out about two weeks after that.  Personally, I was embarrassed that it took us that long (I was raised that you have one week to write a note, otherwise you give it back), but hopefully most people understood.
    I'm sure your guests didn't mind! I love writing letters and such so I would probably be that nerd writing them on the plane, but I certainly don't expect anyone else to do so.
  • H and I got a thank you note a year to the day the wedding was held.  At that point the thank you was meaningless.  I don't care how busy or crazy your life is but to not get thank yous out for a full year is completely ridiculous.
    Serious question - would you just as soon not get one at all? 

    I'm 100% with you that I don't care how busy someone is... Even the President of the United States can probably find time to write a thank you note. There's no excuse. Like ever. But, at what point are you like "eh, this is meaningless"? 
    Well I had pretty much assumed that I wasn't going to get one and once I did finally receive it I really didn't care about it.  To take a year to thank me for a gift is just incredibly rude in my book and at that point no well written thank you note will make up for it.  

    I think 2 months is about the max.  Thank you notes are not difficult to write.  Yeah they can be time consuming and not fun to do but to take longer then 2 months makes you start looking extremely ungrateful about what you were gifted.

  • All of our wedding thank you cards were mailed within two weeks. We just set a quota of how many we needed to write per evening, usually while a movie or TV show was on based on the fact that we wanted to have them all done within two weeks. We wrote thank you cards for cash or cheques immediately and we did not use any of the gifts until the thank for the gift was sent.

    It is just good practice. I honestly get super peeved when people do not send me thank you cards, so I live by the sword.
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  • I'm in a similar situation. I'm actually am more worried that my friend didn't get the gift, not the etiquette aspect. I was a bridesmaid in my good friend's wedding. Due to the wedding craziness, I sent the gift 3 days after the ceremony. This was in July and I've yet to get a Thank You. Do I ask her if she got my gift at this point or wait a few more months? I don't want to shame her for not getting her thank yous out in time (she had a 350+ guestlist), but I also want to be sure that she didn't miss my gift. I always worry about ordering off the registry- I'm never sure that my name gets on the present. 
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