One of the most traditional aspects of life after a wedding is writing all of your thank you cards. I have been consumed by this assignment since we returned from our honeymoon and I have enjoyed working on them. There is just something about getting an item in the mail, right? Since I write letters regularly anyway, these notes have often been long and ‘newsy,’ as many are going to people I correspond with on a regular basis.

Wedding Paper Divas was who I used for our Save the Dates as well as our wedding invitations (when their customer service really stepped things up and saved the day!), so we decided to use them for our thank you cards, too. We then had to go about picking a style of thank you card which is difficult as they have over 1000 choices! We knew we wanted to go with something seasonal, but also not with a picture – people have seen us enough to know what we look like, right? We are traditionalists when it comes to thank you notes, save the dates, etc. I am sure with Christmas cards post-wedding we will be open to a photo! Anyway, here are the three we picked out to decide from:

One style we liked was Artistic Foliage in Marigold, which has such a neat dappled effect on the ‘ground’ of the card.

Style two was Autumn Afternoon in Sienna Brown, which is perfect for late fall as we mail these cards (and it was peak fall when we got married, so a neat cyclical thing going on there).

The last style is Artistic Maple in Autumn Orange, which makes us think of Lexington – maples are the dominant tree in our area, were in our wedding party’s flowers, and have such wonderful color!

Here are two posts, one on our Save the Date cards and another on my experience on wedding invitation addressing.

Another tidbit I gleaned from Wedding Paper Divas was a refresher course on thank you card etiquette. Here are some highlights to that page’s contents:

Response time: Bridal shower thank you notes should be sent within two weeks of the event. (Oops! Let’s pretend that I did that already. Which is a lie. I am still working on mine… how embarrassing…) Brides and grooms should wait no more than 6-8 weeks after the ceremony to send their wedding thank you cards. (Genius idea, seeing as I still have 4-6 weeks left on the wedding gift thank you notes… maybe I should prioritize the bridal shower ones… 🙂 )

The contents of the card: The basic formula to remember is to greet the guest, express gratitude, be specific about the gift, and thank them for attending (or for thinking of you if they could not attend). Tell the giver how you will use the gift. For monetary gifts, on the other hand, thank them for their generosity without mentioning a specific amount. Check and re-check to make sure the person you are thanking for a gift is actually the person who sent it. For example, M and I have a list with each person’s gift on and their name and address. That way we do not get confused!

Sometimes it helps to get feedback from the people who do these cards for a living right? I know WPD gave me some additional ideas about the notes that I had not thought of previously.

I cannot wait to finish writing and then share these beautiful thank you cards with our friends and family! I want to mail them all out together. We chose the Autumn Afternoon card since it was ecru in color (like our invites and save the dates), seasonal, and also a nice mix of formal-meets-casual. I do not know what kind of stamp to get… and yes, I am one of those people who likes to have a coordinating stamp! I will probably get a custom one via USPS and Zazzle. I will say that I have been using burgundy and orange pens for the text in the cards. Maybe I should find something with those colors represented in it?

Personal tip, ladies, do not forget to order some extra thank you cards just to have on hand for the future (and maybe change the wording, but still) as well as for errors while writing/addressing!

So… I would love to hear from you! Which one of these three is your favorite? Did you order custom thank you cards after your wedding? Do you ever order items from Wedding Paper Divas?

Disclosure: I was given a free product after being contacted by Wedding Paper Divas/Shutterfly/Tiny Prints. I am under no contractual obligation to receive the sample or talk about this company. I get no additional benefits for talking about the product or company.