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#Post#: 8524--------------------------------------------------
Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do the
old "thing"?
DIR By: IWish
Date: July 13, 2018, 8:34 am
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My mom attended a wedding of a young couple a few weeks ago and
of course sent a nice gift. Yesterday she received an elegant,
custom printed card in the style of the wedding invitation and
STD card. It had wedding pictures of the happy couple on two
sides and a pre-printed message as follows: "Thank you for
celebrating our wedding day. We're blessed to have friends and
family like you and appreciate your support as we start our
lives together. Love and thanks, The Happy Couple."
We are confused as to whether this is a new custom to thank all
guests for attending the wedding and a separate TY note for the
gift will be forthcoming. Or, is this "the" TY note for the
gift? If it's the former I think it's a sweet gesture (although
maybe one started by the stationary companies. :D) If it's the
latter, I don't think it's appropriate etiquette because there
is nothing personal about it, doesn't mention the specific gift
and doesn't even have a real signature.
Can someone else with more experience in recent wedding planning
chime in?
#Post#: 8528--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: vintagegal
Date: July 13, 2018, 9:11 am
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I got one of those and it WAS the TY card for the gift as well.
Mentioned the "token" (gift) ($500 handmade quilt). Also not
signed, and mailed by the print company. I was gobsmacked.
ETA - I was so gobsmacked I kept it, just got it out - here is
the wording. "Our Wedding Day" (picture of HC) We appreciate the
thoughtful tokens of your love given in honor of our marriage."
(printed names of B & G)
This was about 12 years ago.
#Post#: 8533--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: IWish
Date: July 13, 2018, 9:23 am
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Correction: the wedding was 4 months ago, not a couple of weeks.
That now leads me to believe it might be "the" TY although it
doesn't even mention the word gift anywhere.
Vintagegal - that is truly sad. A handmade quilt didn't warrant
a personalized TY!
#Post#: 8535--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: Thitpualso
Date: July 13, 2018, 9:59 am
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Back in the 1980s it was a fashion to include a wallet-sized
photo of the HC in a TY note. THAT was a nice gesture and the
TY note was a real note.
This is a bit different and not very nice, in my opinion.
#Post#: 8540--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: BeagleMommy
Date: July 13, 2018, 10:32 am
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When BeagleDaddy's godson got married 3 years ago they did this.
I found it a lazy way to send TY cards without really sending
them.
#Post#: 8541--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: Luci
Date: July 13, 2018, 10:41 am
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Funeral homes have been doing this for years, even when I was
24. I have written the notes for our family members on the
prewritten card and most of the ones I have received have also
had a personalized note, so appreciated them. I always thought
the people who sent these out unpersonalized were remiss.
It breaks my heart that this practice has filtered down to
weddings. It ranks right up there addressing your own shower
thank you. I wouldn’t mind the preprinted note with, "Thank you
for the gift. We will put it towards saving for our home."
We all end up with a standard opening anyway and writing the
same thing over and again is pretty tedious. Just please write a
personal line!
#Post#: 8544--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: TootsNYC
Date: July 13, 2018, 10:54 am
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It breaks my heart that it was ever a thing with funerals!
When my grandma died, the whole family sat down to hand-write
thank-you notes together. Notes for the food, notes for memorial
donations, notes for letters or greeting cards with personal
thoughts in them.
It was very bonding! Both among ourselves, and also I think
between the people who were supporting Grandpa, and him. He
didn't personally write them all, but there was an ongoing
conversation about who we were writing to, and what they'd
given/sent, and Grandpa would share stories about how he and
Grandma were connected to him.
This is the POINT of all these letters. Not to check off some
box, but to create connections between people.
I'm currently reading a YA fantasy series by Susan Dennard
(Witchlands), and one of the "witch" powers is Threadwitch, who
sees the connections between people as visible threads.
It really made me think about all the ways people "stitch"
ourselves together into a community.
Gifts and thanks are part of this--and the more personal
effort that goes into it, the thicker the threads and the
stronger the stitches.
These people are also missing out! My husband and I wrote out
thank-you notes with care, and I made sure to write something
different in almost every thank-you note (OK, well, I probably
repeated some, but if I was writing to five members of the same
family--aunts who were sisters, their kids, etc.--I wrote
something different to each of them).
(I wrote for his side of the family; he wrote to mine--again,
I was "stitching" each of us to the family that we WEREN'T
already attached to.)
We got feedback on our thank-you notes! People compared notes
among those family groups, and many of them called my MIL to
praise the notes, or they mentioned the note to me at a family
gathering.
And at the baby shower a couple of years later, we got VERY
generous gifts and an enthusiastic outpouring of affection.
There were people asking my MIL to be sure they were invited;
that's how effective and marketing scheme it turned out to be.
(That was not intentional; I just wanted to do the right thing.
The cause-and-effect connection was not on my mind.)
#Post#: 8545--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: TootsNYC
Date: July 13, 2018, 10:57 am
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--- Quote from: Thitpualso link ---
>
> Back in the 1980s it was a fashion to include a wallet-sized
photo of the HC in a TY note. THAT was a nice gesture and the
TY note was a real note.
>
>
--- End Quote ---
I remember that! And I remember that the etiquette experts of
the time were saying, "Don't wait for the professional
photographer to finally get you those photos--it can take too
long! [because it could take months] Send the notes earlier!"
And guests saying, "I don't need the picture; I'd rather have
the note." Or "I like getting the picture, I'm OK waiting for
the note."
I got married about then, and I fixed it by picking a photo my
mom had taken and having it made into wallets--which took about
10 days, what with back-and-forths. So I was able to mail
thank-yous within 2 weeks.
#Post#: 8557--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: Aleko
Date: July 13, 2018, 11:46 am
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--- Quote ---
> "We appreciate the thoughtful tokens of your love given in
honor of our marriage."
--- End Quote ---
Vintagegal, they weren't calling your lovely quilt a "token
gift", not at all. It's perfectly legit to call a gift - any
gift - a token (in the dictionary sense "thing serving as a
visible or tangible representation") of love / friendship /
regard, however you want to phrase it.
The offence here is not that they denigrated your present, but
that they didn't even bother to write and thank you for the
specific present you gave them; they just had a print company
mail a circular to all their guests. Because a circular is all
that is - a photo and an elegant style doesn't make it any more
than that.
#Post#: 8560--------------------------------------------------
Re: Is this TY card a new "thing" or a bad way to do
the old "thing"?
DIR By: TootsNYC
Date: July 13, 2018, 12:17 pm
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I meant to say that about the phrase "token of love" or "token
of affection." In this sense, a token is stand-in; its not "a
trinket" or "a trivial thing."
We do use the word "token" in phrases like "a token gift," in
which the stand-in is the less valuable thing.
But a token of love IS something less valuable than the actual
thing--but the actual think is your love, and therefore ANY gift
will be far less valuable, no matter what it's financial value.
I agree, the biggest problem is that your gift did end up
feeling like an unvalued thing, because they couldn't be
bothered to actually mention it, or to actually add a personal
touch to their thanks.
(I think this is one of the unfortunate offshoots of wedding
gifts being either money or something the couple picked out for
themselves.)
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