Wine and Thank You Notes

My inadequate posting about valentine's day was boring. Let us move onto bigger and better things, shall we?

I do really want to write this blog, though you wouldn't be able to tell by my... um 2 posts?


Anyway, I am a LOUDLY outspoken supporter of handwritten notes, thank you notes mostly. If someone took the time to give you a gift of any kind - especially for a big event, ie graduation, wedding, baby showers - you should send them a thank you - and you should take the time to write it with a pen. I do this for birthday gifts as well. Personally, I think the handwritten anything is a lost art. Especially the art of heartfelt thanks.

This is, of course, brought up because I am currently getting ready to send out my wedding thank you notes. I have been working on them for awhile now, and it's no small task.

Our thank you notes came to us very early in the wedding planning process. A family friend (who, consequently was also my dress designer and maker along with contributions from two other lovely ladies, one of whom happens to be my mommy) had some picture frame Christmas cards that she had not used. These cards came in the form a very holiday/religiously ambigious WINTER theme. See crappy cell phone pic below:

As these cards make no mention of any particular holiday and offer the customization of some very awesome professional photographs, they made perfect handmade thank you cards!

Only one drawback:

It's so pretty on the inside! (just like me? question mark on purpose? i'm ron burgundy?) I couldn't write on this! And if I did, I would write around the snowflake... and then... would there be enough room? Dilemma.

So Mama and I came up with a grand scheme (as we are wont to do), and we cut out pieces of a nice light blue paper that I have been writing my thank you notes out on. I think its kind of nice, it feels more natural to write on this very nice paper than to write on a waxy card . And I like to think that people can keep the card as a frame for the pic we're going to send them. It will be nice for our very generous guests to have a picture of us from the wedding they attended -- for free!

I did my thank you notes in a sort of Mad Lib way, unique to the type of gift given, and personalized from there:

For a gift:

Gift giver,

Thank you so very much for _____. (Something about the gift)! So glad to see you at the wedding/We are blessed to have shared our day with you/Something generic about the wedding day. Love US!

For cash, which was deposited by Mom for the honeymoon:

Gift giver,

Thank you so very much for your generous gift! You can be sure that a great time was had in the Happiest Place on Earth (DisneyWorld) thanks to you! (again, something generic about coming to the wedding) Love US!

For a check, which went into our joint savings:

Gift giver,

Thank you so very much for your generous gift! We hope to be shopping for a home very soon! (something generic about the wedding day) Love US!

I tried to not write the exact same thing on every one. I know everyone KNOWS that I have to write a gajillion of these, but I did try to put a personal swing and tried to write sincere. But it is a project and I wanted to make it doable.

We are almost ready to send these babies out, and it feels good. I won't share with you the picture that was selected yet, as I just sent the link to this blog to a thank you note receiver (You know who you are, HI!)

As an aside, I have a handful of these left to write. And as I am writing the notes themselves, I am trying to write at least the names of the recipients even if they are getting their addresses later. And, I am so proud of myself! Even after three glasses of wine, I wrote a perfect cursive Z smoothly with the rest of the name! Dude, seriously, how often do you write a cursive Z? It just came out of me! I don't even know where it was hiding!

Then, in my hurry to post my GLORIOUS ACCOMPLISHMENT on Facebook, I spilled my wine on the envelope.

I am a prompt, if not efficient, fail.

I mean, seriously, what a waste of wine...