I’m with you on thank you notes. I sent one to everyone of our guests – even those that didn’t give us a gift. At minimum people took time on a Friday afternoon/evening they could have done anything else and spent it with us.

I send thank you notes anytime someone gives a gift – montetary or otherwise. I was talking with a couple coworkers who are a little younger than me, and they didn’t get why it seemed necessary – if you say thanks in person why do you need to write it down? It blew my mind.

I get why thank you notes are important, but I wish thank you emails were more acceptable. Yes, handwritten notes take more time, but that doesn’t necessarily make them ore personal. I have TERRIBLE handwriting and I tend to make a lot of mistakes while writing. If I’m handwriting something, I often have to rewrite something several times before I get a clean version of it. Plus emails save paper and are faster!

As for receiving thank you notes: I don’t care if I get them from other people when I give gifts. The only thing is that if I don’t get a thank you for a wedding gift, I worry that the couple did not receive my gift, that it might’ve gotten lost or something.

I’ve sent thank you emails for stuff like kid’s bday parties. It’s to my friends, so they don’t care. And I’ll often do thank you phone calls instead of cards. My parents certainly prefer them, and my grandfather would much rather have a chat than receive a card. Obviously that doesn’t work for weddings, but I do it for birthdays, baby gifts, etc.