Slightly irritated about thank you notes...

I would be annoyed too! I agree with Tania, I don't think this is a new thing, just a lazy thing.

I have received hand written thank you notes for all the bridal showers, baby showers and weddings I have gone to...but one of them was 6 months after the event! That was weird, but better late than never! I've heard the key is to try to write 5 a day in order to complete them in a reasonable amount of time.

I never remember to do thank you notes for Xmas or other gifts (I think most people in my family stopped doing them so it's OK for that). I do write them for anything gifts given at work, am planning to do them for the shower and the wedding immediately after each one before I get too lazy. But it bugs me when people don't do them for a shower or wedding - those are much larger/more expensive gifts than a birthday or something.

I'm even more set on doing thank you notes than ever now, due to recent family events. My cousin got married last July, I went to both his wedding and the shower for his wife (last June), and never received a thank you note for either event where I gave gifts. Flash forward to last week - we received an invitation for the cousin's wife's baby shower - there's some other family drama going on where we won't be attending (the cousin's mom was purposely not invited), but especially not since we didn't get thank you notes or even a verbal thank you.

I'm pretty sure it has to do with the parents. My mom has already lectured me what feels like a million times that I will be sending thank yous. I'm still not sure why she'd think I wouldn't.

Im 24 and currently writing mine.

We went to a wedding in August and didn't get a thank you card until 6 months later, and then to top it off it was a generic "thank you for the gift and for celebrating with us" that was printed onto all the cards. (I know because my mom also got one and they were exactly the same)

She ordered them online so she could have their picture on it and I just threw it away. It was so meaningless.

Speaking of thank you cards, @Tania, did you get mine??

I find it incredibly rude and tacky. My cousin never sent thank you notes for her shower or her wedding, both of which I gave her generous gifts for. (That was over a year ago). And she's not young either, so I think she should have known better. There's not really a good excuse for it, IMO.

I agree that it's ridiculous! I believe proper etiquette is 1 month after you get back from the honeymoon, but my plan is to start in on them as soon as I get back and have them out within 2 weeks of the honeymoon. I don't want them to linger!

I'm also one of those people who do handwritten thank you notes for interviews, and I know that's made me stand out. It doesn't take long, so I don't understand why a thank you note is so difficult!! Funny story: Last time, I had 8 interviews. For every interview, I sent a thank you note. I eventually was interviewed by a director on the phone who had me TEXT MESSAGE a thank you ... after I insisted. He said it was so old fashion and not to worry about it, but if I insisted (which I did), to send me a thank you via text. I got the job, and he still teases me about my insistence on sending thank you notes!

That's an odd "new trend" and not a good one. I think people just become "too busy" with checking in their FB status than to take time to send a thank you note.

I sent out my shower cards the day after my shower. Wedding thank you's I did lag a bit...only cause I was waiting for some wedding pics backs to include in the note , and then waiting til we found our new place-was in the process of moving. So didn't want to put old address on the thank you note. I think sent them 9 weeks after the wedding... Hoping none get lost!

It's not an age thing, it's a "raised with no manners" thing.

(FH and I, 24 and 22, will be working on them as soon as we get home after the wedding. Shouldn't take too long for such a small guest list. However, over a year later and still not even a verbal thanks from FMIL and FSFIL, in their early 50s, for the pressie for their wedding.)

Depending on situation (double jobs, children, moving soon after the wedding - things like that) I'd expect a call to say thanks, at the very least, within 3 months.

People in my culture don't do thank you cards. I've only ever gotten them from "Americans" (in quotes, because I am also American, so I mean other Americans that aren't in my culture, lol).

I don't think I've ever written a thank you card. I will be doing them after the wedding though, because the majority of our guests will probably expect one and consider me rude if I don't write them, and I don't want them to feel unappreciated.

We never got thank yous from a wedding 2 years ago. We never got thanks yous from FH' BM's wedding in November. The GM also never got gifts for being in the wedding, the groom said "Ahh I'll get them to you later". Nope.

I was just looking to order some thank you notes, this gives me more conviction lol.

Thank-you cards were never part of my upbringing. I was over 30 the first time I received one, and i was taken aback and confused by it.

I just sent out 4 the other day for birthday gifts that I recieved, and an engagement gift. I find it really rude to accept gifts from people with no acknowledgement of their generosity. I actually was not brought up in a family that regularly sent thank you notes. I don't recall ever seeing my family members write them, but it seems like common courtesy. I write one for every gift I get (except immediate family members...they get a call or in person thank you). I don't think it has to do with upbringing since I was never told to do it as a child/teenager/young adult. I think it's just plain entitlement.

It's not entitlement. I don't give gifts to be thanked. It makes me really uncomfortable to think that my friend went and bought a card and sat down and wrote a whole thing out just because I got her a small birthday gift. If something makes ME uncomfortable, I'm not going to do that thing to other people.

The only one I can think of having gotten was from a very good friend of mine who I was a BM for. It took a while but when it arrived, what she did was had a photo of her with each of her bridesmaids from the wedding printed up and used that as the thank-you card, so it was really special. I was rather peeved at not getting a thank you card from an old high-school friend who invited me at the last minute, and I got them a pretty nice gift off the registry even though I was working three jobs at the time and still barely managing to rub two pennies together. We hadn't spoken in a couple years prior to the invite, and I'd thought maybe we were rekindling a friendship, but I have never heard from her since the wedding, either, so I was definitely just used for a gift.

What??? You cannot be for real right now? Do you seriously think it is putting someone out for them to send a thank you note. They don't have to go our and get a card and a stamp or spend any amount of money. A thank you email, a thank you text, just a note on a peice of notebook paper even...an acknowledgement of generosity is not asking too much. I do not give gifts in order to be thanked....I don't think anyone does. But thanking someone for their gift is common courtesy.

I honestly cannot believe anyone would feel uncomfortable about receiving a heart felt thank you note. It takes all of 2 minutes. I have amassed a collection of stationary and cards over the years, but that doesn't mean I don't send thank you emails. Those take even less time. It's not a long process: Hey *****, I got your gift and FH and I are so thankful you thought of us on our special day. We can't wait to make a nice dinner together and get a chance to use that set of china you gave us. We will have to have you over some time to try it out! Thank you again. We hope you had a nice time.

It literally took me 46 seconds to write that up. It might take an extra minute to find their address, 1 minute to address the envelope, and 1 minute to put a stamp on it and put it in the mailbox. I think I can take 3 minutes of my life to thank someone for their generosity. I find it weird that anyone would be uncomfortable knowing that their friends spend 3 minutes of their day to thank them for something nice.

Ps @ purple kitten....I wasnt saying you are entitled specifically.

I have noticed this recently too, and it definitely bothers me. I hate that it's something attributed as a generational thing, too, because I'm 25 and I still am a big believer in writing thank you notes for gifts received.

Funny story though- FSIL had a baby shower and engagement party last summer (within 2 weeks of each other... yea.) Anyway, no thank you cards were ever sent. Then, around Christmas, some family members on her mom's side threw her a bridal shower while she was visiting for the holidays. One of the gifts at the shower was a thank you note set, pre-addressed cards, and a stamp with their address on it. I thought it was a HILARIOUS way for her aunt to send a message that she should've sent thank you cards for all of those gifts.

They would have said thank you when I gave it to them. That's plenty. The whole thank-you note thing... I just don't like it.

I mean, i think it's weird that you're bothered by NOT having received one. To each their own.

I was in the same boat after a wedding last year and turns out they were just really slow! Got it 6 months later