Well, marrying into a gigantic Irish Catholic family and having a large family myself I was thrown three showers with over 30 at each one, as well as TWO WEDDING RECEPTIONS, one in New York with 235 in attendance and one a month later in Toledo with about 175 in attendance.
Mr. Jar said he would help with the notes and he did. He wrote four of them.
I wrote the rest and it did, in fact take six months to do, because after a while you go crazy. But believe me, had I not done it, I would have been ridden out of town on a fucking RAIL.
And for those who said “no one compares thank you notes”? YOu are wrong. I DO have to come up with original notes for everyone, because it is a long standing tradition in our family for all the women to call each other and say “what did she say in YOUR note?” and if the adjectives are the same? I’m in big fucking trouble.
This thread has inspired me. For years, I’ve given gifts to my niece and nephew, mostly mailed, because we live 800 miles apart. I got a thank-you email from my niece once, and nothing from my nephew. Then next gifts they receive will be stationery. I may even include stamps. I bet they go unused. My sister apparently believes that courtesy would stifle her hellions…
At Etiquette Hell, somebody said they saw a Web site for a company that will write your thank-you notes for you. You just send them the list, appropriate nicknames, what kind of handwriting you want used (!) and they crank them out and send them back so you can mail them with your own postmark. The site is apparently getting rave reviews from clueless brides. How sick.
Aunt Judy works at Walmart.
She makes 10 bucks an hour.
She buys you a 20 dollar picture frame.
wrapping paper costa about 2 bucks or so.
Do you not realize that she worked a bit over TWO HOURS of retail hell to pay for your gift? That she probably could use that money elsewhere?
and that all it takes is 2 minutes for you to write a card to accknowledge it?
if really, its the thought that counts and you think giving your thanks verbally is good enough, then why not return the gifts they gave you? I mean, after all, they said, I am sure “congratulations on your wedding”. THAT sentiment should be enough! you don’t need gifts!
and as for the vase thing, how completely UNGRATEFUL. I am not even going to go there…
and as for being forced to have a huge wedding? Funny, I thought you had to be an adult to get married. Seems to me that if you REALLY wanted a small wedding you should have put your foot down.
please, quit trying to justify your ungratefullness.
and jarbaby, if your relatives compare notes, it would be funny if you add something in your notes!
Dear Aunt Sally,
Thanks for the Vase!
when you show this note to Aunt Mabel, tell her I said hi!
-Dankershane (how does one spell this in german?)
your beloved Jarbaby
Ditto on the “be a grown-up” thing. Two stories: (1) I have a normally very strong-willed friend who eloped to marry her boyfriend who was in the military at the time. But her family is very religious and “made” them have the big church wedding when he returned a few months later. This friend even pretends that they belong to the church down the street when her family visits, a la Herb Tarlek. This just slays me.
(2) Before our wedding, my mother was telling a friend of hers about the arrangements: Friday afternoon county courthouse wedding, red bridal dress, a friend as my attendant rather than my only sister. The friend was horrified about all these things and exclaimed, “Well, maybe I won’t want to attend this wedding!” My dad said, “Well, I don’t know if they’re planning on inviting you!” He was right – we had 23 people at both the wedding and dinner, about half immediate family and half closest friends. We “stiffed” most of the people we knew. Even if there had been a big wedding, no way would we have turned part of the guest list over to my parents (his were dead). It was OUR wedding, and we did it OUR way. (Cue Sinatra)
For our wedding, we already had the addresses of the invited guests entered in a data base. Our wedding was relatively small, so I ran the envelopes individually through a laser printer for the addresses. (Yes, I checked the standard etiquette sources…it’s “ok” to do this, the notion of an outer envelope apparently dated from a time when the invitations were hand delivered, with the outer envelope opened by someone else).
I used the same data base to print up clear labels for the thank you cards. Again, the labels are for the benefit of the postal carrier…and they were probably more legible than if my wife or I had written the addresses. That left us time to hand write the thank you cards (I used the same data base to match up the items with the gift giver). We had our thank you cards sent within 2 weeks of the wedding.
I join the other posters in thinking that not writing a simple thank you card for a gift is being crass. Don’t want to write hundreds of thank you cards? Don’t invite hundreds of people to the wedding.
And saying…
…seems like the ultimate in boorish behavior. You’re really telling people who spent money and time to give you a gift to “fuck you” ? Lovely.
check, no bridal shower. i wasn’t really planning to have one, it only occured to me reading this thread. i don’t regret having a baby shower, though. i really wanted and needed that (i was very depressed) and no one else was going to do it for me.
there won’t be many people at the wedding as i am having to pay for it myself. my mother offered to have it (at a restaurant that she likes), saying i could invite mark’s parents and one friend. that’s the same thing she said about my 15th birthday party. she didn’t even want to let us invite the pastor to the reception (he’s one of mark’s best friends). so, as usual, i’m doing it myself.
what about people who weren’t invited? one guest at my baby shower had another mutual friend of ours drive her. another guest was recovering from major surgery and her mother (in from france) drove her. both non-invitees were welcome and brought gifts, so i feel they should be thanked. but the guests who brought them have been no help in getting an address. (the third person i haven’t thanked is my grandmother who doesn’t currently have an address or a phone number. she’s been living in motels while looking for a house in texas. i have a card for her, and i will mail or hand-deliver it when i have an opportunity.)
come to think of it, i once sent a thank you note for a thank you note… a church where i had worked sent me a card thanking me for the work i’d done, along with a gift of $200. i was very grateful for that!
In that case, I think I would just send the thank-you notes to the invited guests who brought them, with a cover note explaining that you’ve done your best to get the other person’s address, and would they please pass it along.
I once received a thank-you note for a thank-you note, under similar circumstances. A public library’s reference librarians had done some research for me in response to several questions I had sent them by fax, and I sent them a note along with a small donation to the library above and beyond the photocopy fees they had requested. They sent me a nice snail-mail letter thanking me for the donation. I still have it.
And I won’t begrudge you the baby shower. There are always exceptions to the rule. It’s the folks who think that wedding/baby = GIMME! that irk me.
I didn’t have a bridal shower either. My friends were pretty scattered at the time, and as I’ve said, I don’t really get into showers anyway, and my tastes are pretty unusual. Of the four, count ‘em, four noncash wedding gifts we received, three were in a color I hate, and they were all IMHO butt-ugly. But I wrote “How thoughtful of you” thank-you notes for them, along with the rest. One was from my parents’ neighbors, who weren’t even invited to the wedding, nor did they get an announcement or anything, so it WAS thoughtful of them to give us a nice vase out of the blue, even if I didn’t care for the style.
I do treasure the fourth noncash gift we received – an embroidered handkerchief from my “pseudo-grandma” (neighbor lady when I was growing up). I’m quite sure she didn’t stitch it herself; it’s likely something she had in her bureau drawer. It wasn’t even wrapped. But I remember her hands, with their slight tremor, placing it in mine as she said, “Here’s something for your wedding. It’s not much, but it’s old.” :sniff: She was a cranky old lady, but sweet in her own way, and I miss her.
Public Blast-I have an idea for the crystal vases: You and your wife take them, and break the necks off, leaving the edges jagged.
And then shove them up your selfish, spoiled, inconsiderate asses.
Hell, I don’t even see why everyone should have to shell out tons and tons for gifts. I mean, it’s my wedding-my gift should be to them! That’s why I’m going to have a small wedding, but save up a lot and go all out on food. I want my guests to have a DAMN good time.
I had to respond to this too. This WAS written tongue in cheek, right? Because if it wasn’t, and it did indeed “infuriate you” that some one gave you crystal as a gift, you are one of the most selfish, ignorant assholes I have ever seen. [If you were in fact kidding, I’m sorry; none of this applies and I’ve been whooshed. If you were serious, you’ve got some growing up to do].
Here is matt_mcl’s Never Fail Method of Acknowledging Gifts.
Prior to every event at which you may* be receiving gifts for which a thank you will be required**, buy the following:
a. an array of stamps in denominations that allow you to make up all of the postal service’s current rates (regular-price ones and whatever fractional ones are needed to make up foreign rates, if applicable)
b. cards. It’s better not to buy the ones that say Thank You - it makes it look like you couldn’t take two seconds to write “thank you”. For Christmas, I bought black cards and envelopes from an art supply store, and gold and silver gel pens. They looked EXTREMELY sharp.
Receive gifts.
Choose a gift.
Find the address of the person who sent the gift. Address the envelope.
THEN open the gift. Ooh, ahh, what crap***, etc.
Write the thank you note.
Seal the note, stamp, put in pile.
Repeat steps 3-7 until no further gifts remain.
Mail the notes.
You have now sent thank-you notes to all the gifts, you have straight who sent what, and you feel morally superior to boot because you did not permit yourself to enjoy opening any further gifts until you finished writing the note for the previous one.
*Not “will”. One never attends a party with the expectation of receiving gifts, not even one’s birthday. Or wedding.
**At parties where opening whatever presents may come is part of the entertainment (birthday, shower, Christmas), you can thank the donor for the gift in person, after you unwrap it. However, it’s still good to send a note in addition. You should not unwrap gifts at your wedding.
***Never express this sentiment in the presence of anyone who cannot be relied upon absolutely as a conspirator.
I have collected several substitutes for “What crap” that are safe to utter in the presence of the giver:
“Oh, you shouldn’t have!” (more truth than they know)
“You always give such interesting gifts!” (possible ditto, if you interpret “interesting” to mean “hideous”)
“What amazing colors!”
“How thoughtful of you!”
“Wherever did you find this/come up with the idea?”
“Ooh, a labelmaker!” (thank you Seinfeld)
“How unique! I’ve never seen one of these before!”
“It must have taken you hours to make this!”
All of these must be exclaimed with exaggerated brightness, to camouflage the gag reflex.
Some people believe that it is important to give young people something beautiful, even if impractical, on the belief that they will use it forever and wouldn’t have a chance to buy it for themselves. Honestly, some people feel pretty strongly about this, and would not feel right giving you a drill no matter how much you wanted it. Now, you can think that’s crap, but the thing is: the gift is FOR THE GIVER TO CHOOSE. Perhaps at yoru next wedding, you could carefully screen your guest list and not invite anyone who is likely to buy you something expensive, impractical, and heavy to ship?
We didn’t register for any china or anything because I just don’t care for that, but at my MIL’s bequest and the agreement of the woman who helped us with the registry, we selected some expensibe orrefors wine glasses. Unbelievably, we got all of them we asked for, so clearly this choice resonated with some people (most of them of a certain generation). They are lovely, even if we don’t use them much.
We got a water pitcher and I thought it was one of the duller gifts ever conceived (although I know I managed to write a gushing thank you for it). Well, it turned out to be a marvelous thing, great for flowers and wonderful when I was entertaining and wanted to have water or tea or lemonade on the table. Who knew how much I’d end up valuing it? It broke last month and I almost cried.
Wow, I didn’t expect such an impassioned response! I’m grateful for all the counter-arguments offered to my rant. Allow me to add a few points:
We were quite literally arm-twisted into both the larger wedding and the reception. We were interested in neither one, and if we felt we could have skipped either or both and still have our parents talk to us, we would have. We didn’t have any say in planning either event, had no control over the amount or population of the guest list, and we registered at Target (in vain) in an attempt to supply many cheap, simple gift options for people so inclined. While some may argue that my wife and I had the option, as adults, to skip these events or put our respective feet down, all I can say is that we had no choice.
I have now learned that people really do sit down and fill out hundreds of thank-you cards. I am somewhat humbled, and do believe that I will follow your example. The idea of making a database of addresses was a good one–I think I may be able to get something like that together.
I still, however, stand by my statements about crystal. Crystal is, frankly, useless to us: we have no place to put it, we didn’t ask for it, and we didn’t and still don’t need it. Now, if I was buying a gift for a couple in their late twenties, or an older couple that was already established, I think crystal would be a fine gift: it’s the sort of thing you’d put in a curio cabinet or on a mantel.
But to two kids straight out of college trying to start their careers? Come on–we don’t even have a curio cabinet or a mantel, nor can we afford them!
Again, can someone explain to me the logic here? I don’t mean to wave my youth and inexperience around, but buying us crystal was only slightly different than buying crystal as a high school graduation gift for a kid.
In any case, thanks all for the flames. This is the first time I’ve ever been flamed here on the SDMB! I am shamed and humbled on many points, and resolute and stubborn on others. Truly a learning experience.
Hey, I’m a woman and I think they’re moronic. I tell all my family to never waste a stamp on a stupid thank-you card. My mom thanked me by AIM for the Mother’s Day flowers and locket she got, and as far as I’m concerned, that was more than sufficient.
That, by the way, was perhaps one of the most graceful responses to a flaming I have ever seen. Kudos.
One point, though-
Well, if this was a huge wedding that your parents put together for you, perhaps those guests weren’t aware that you had neither a curio cabinet nor a mantel and could afford neither? In which case your ire should be reserved for your parents for bullying you into a large event you didn’t want, not for the guests who were following convention.
I don’t mean to wave my youth and inexperience around, but buying us crystal was only slightly different than buying crystal as a high school graduation gift for a kid.