How to Do Wedding Thank You Notes

You are grateful for all the wonderful wedding gifts, but the thought of getting out your thank you notes can seem a like a huge task that most newlyweds don't even know where to start. Here is a system that can help you get 'er done!

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• Excel
• Team Work
• Thank You note cards
• Envelopes
• Stamps

1. Using Excel, make a column for each of the following: NAME, GIFT, THANK YOU WRITTEN, THANK YOU MAILED across the top. Select the option of having a border around each row and column to create boxes so you can easily fill in and check off the information.
2. When open your presents, have one person open the presents and the other person on the computer with Excel.
3. As you open each gift, have them type in who the gift was from under NAME.
   Under GIFT, write down what the gift was.
4. Once you have all the information down for your notes, print the list and divide it in half. So if you have 100 thank you notes to write, you can split it and each only have 50 to worry about.
5. When writing your thank you note, make it personal. It doesn't have to be long, but mention the gift and how it will be used or figure out a simple way to reference it. If it was a gift card, you can say something along the lines of, "Dear Mr & Mrs Cook, Thank you for being part of our special day and for your thoughtful gift. It will go into our vacuum cleaner fund! With Love, Mr and Mrs Smith." Or "Thank you for the great waffle maker, it will be a part of many Sunday morning brunches for us!"
6. As you complete each thank you note, check it off under the column THANK YOU WRITTEN. And as you address and mail your notes, you can then check off the THANK YOU MAILED column. This will make it so much easier to tackle this project and make sure you don't forget anyone.

Tips & Warnings

• You may want to sit down one night and try to get them all done, but it might be less exhausting to decide to do 10-15 a day. That way you'll be more likely to keep your hand writing nice.
• Some etiquette says you have up to 6 months to complete and mail out your thank you notes, but the sooner the better! Just get them over with and try and do it within 2 months of the wedding at the latest.
• You don't have to use excel, you can just as easily make a similar list on a pad if paper or in a WORD document. The key is to create a system and organize the information to make the job easier.