Thank you card -- no gift or card but came to wedding

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I'm planning to write a thank you card to everyone who attended our wedding, regardless if they brought a gift/card or not. You should definitely thank anyone who came to your wedding since they came to spend your special day with you. I don't think it's considered fishing for a gift or anything if you write to those who didn't give you a gift.

I'm in the same boat and am planning to send a card to thank them for coming (and traveling). I really don't care about the gifts and many some of the people who didn't bring gifts were children (yes, adults) of families that were incredibly generous. The parents could have told them not to bring something because they are family gifting or something like that, I don't know. I don't think it is fishing if the card is thank you so much for traveling, it was fun to party with you etc....

Interested in what others say...

I only sent thank yous to people who gave a gift or a card. The reception is the thank you for coming.

I'm in the send a thank to you all who attended camp. Thank them for taking time to be there on your special day and let them know how much it meant to you to have them there. Others will say the reception is the thank you and no card is needed if they didn't bring a gift. I've never heard of the "reception is the thank you" thing before WW, so I stand by sending a thank you all who came. IMO you can never go wrong sending a thank you.

The etiquette is to send thank you cards to those who gave you a gift. The reception is the "thank you" to your guests for coming to your wedding, at which time, you are supposed to personally thank each guest at the reception. This is why the bride and groom are given the advice to make sure to eat because they will not have much time during the reception to sit down and eat.

I was leaning towards not sending them. At the reception we went around to each table and thanked each of our guests for coming while they ate (we scarfed a few bites down beforehand haha). The only reason I thought maybe I should send them was because our wedding was out of town for most people.

We only sent to those who gave gifts or brought a card. The reception itself is a thank you for attending.

Sending a thank you for attending *sometimes* comes across to people as a passive aggressive way of pointing out they didn't bring anything. This likely depends on your crowd.

I did, but really the only people who didn't were immediate family members who we told not to bring gifts anyway because they were spending so much money on traveling.

We had two cousins that didn't, but I went ahead and send cards because it was only the two of them.

Sending a thank you card when they did not give a gift definitely comes across as fishing for a gift or passive-aggressively pointing out that they did not give anything. That is not polite. Send thank you notes only when gifts were given or if they helped out in some way. Not just for attendance.

Nope, writing thank you's to those who gave us a card or gift. What I've heard is the reception is a thank you for coming.. I mean you are paying for food and drinks and a party atmosphere. I might say though maybe people who traveled quite a distance would be okay to send a card. But in reality I probably wouldn't.

Thank you cards to those who gave a gift.

Also a thank you card to those who didn't bring a gift, but the wedding was a DW for them: money spent on travel and lodging to attend your wedding should be acknowledged, IMO.

I'm sending thank you cards to everyone.

You only write thank you notes for gifts. The reception is the thank you for attending.

I'm sending one to every one coming. It's a DW and I think it should be acknowledged.

It can come off as very passive-aggressive to send a note thanking somebody for attending a wedding. In my opinion, the outlier here is destination weddings, as @Beachy said.

I would probably send a card, but would probably have a very generic "thank you to sharing our special day with us" and that's it written inside

I did not send a thank you card to those who did not give a gift.

About half my guest list did not get us a gift or card so I'm struggling with this right now too. I think I'm going to send cards that just say something along the lines of "Thank you for coming to our wedding. It was great to see you and celebrate with you."

I think it's just the right thing to do to send a thank you card since they made the effort of coming. I don't know if that's technically right but I feel like it is. I was pretty surprised how many people did not bring a gift or card. And the strange thing is that most people that really had to travel did get us a gift. Most of the people that didn't get us anything only had about a 1 hr drive.

Edit: I'm not doing it to be passive aggressive at all. I'm doing it because I personally feel like I should. If they take it as passive aggressive, that's on them. I do think they were rude not bringing even a card. We only had 9 cards and had 140 guests so it kind of hurt our feelings. But I'm not going to be wrong back.

Edit2: And half of those 9 cards were empty but we appreciated the empty cards too. It just hurt our feelings that so many people couldn't even sign a card and drop it in a box for us. Not necessarily a card with money, just a card saying congrats.

I think thank you cards for those who had to travel are nice regardless of whether they brought a gift. You do need to be careful about tone to avoid coming across as passive aggressive.