Wedding Guest Offended After Receiving ‘Lazy’ Stock Thank-You Card From Newlyweds
No thank-you note at all would have been better received than what she got.
fizkes | Getty Images | Canva Pro When was the last time you actually sent someone a handwritten thank-you note? As online life has changed the way we communicate, it's also changed many of our social habits, from "ghosting" to last-minute reneging on plans. A looser, less rigid structure has taken hold that would have been unthinkable a few decades ago.
And with it has come what many see as the death of "social graces" and etiquette. It's become perfectly okay in many people's eyes to just shoot a text sending your regrets moments before an event you RSVP'd for months ago, for example. As one woman on Reddit recently experienced, this looseness often extends even to efforts to keep these old-fashioned traditions alive.
A wedding guest is offended by a newlywed couple's generic thank-you notes.
If you're over, say, 35 or so, you likely grew up having to write thank-you notes every time you received a gift or got invited to a party. It used to simply be the way things were done: It was how you showed not only gratitude, but respect, especially towards people older than you.
Of course, now that "snail mail" barely even exists anymore, most of us just call or text to say thank you, but weddings are one of the few occasions where the thank-you note tradition lives on. But it seems today's young people are kind of resorting to half measures, if this Redditor's story is any indication.
After recently attending a wedding, she and her husband were shocked by the generic thank-you note they received. And this wasn't just some backyard reception. It was held in a $50,000 venue with a live band and all the bells and whistles. The thank-you notes, however? They were downright tacky.
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The thank-you notes were automated, had no message, and misspelled the guest's name.
The Redditor described the thank-you notes as so generic and impersonal that the couple might as well have not bothered. "It is a single piece of card stock with a picture from the wedding of the couple kissing," she wrote. "All it says is thank you and their names. No personalized note."
It was also mailed directly from the online printer, part of an automated wedding service. The couple had no real involvement in the cards at all. Worst of all, "my name was spelled wrong on the address." This, after having given a "generous cash gift" to the couple.
"I'm so annoyed and offended! Are people actually that lazy now?" the woman ranted. "I'd be less annoyed if they'd sent nothing, because six months from now I wouldn't be sitting around thinking they never sent a thank you card — I would have FORGOTTEN."
People agreed that this was downright tacky and poor etiquette.
Obviously, thank you notes as a concept are pretty old-fashioned, and the huge pile of logistics for planning and executing a wedding surely makes automating as much as possible feel like a huge relief. But basically every single part of a wedding is old-fashioned. That's kind of the allure of a traditional wedding, especially in these times.
And when it comes to showing gratitude to the people who not only spent a ton of money to attend your wedding but gave you a huge cash gift on top of it? Sending a random piece of card stock with a person's name misspelled isn't just gauche, it shows that you only did it in the first place because you're expected to, not because you're actually grateful.
On Reddit, many people weren't particularly fussed about thank-you cards in the first place. It's an old-fashioned tradition that doesn't mean much to most of us nowadays. But most agreed that if you're going to do it, then actually do it and put forth the effort to make it actually mean something instead of just another piece of paper in the mailbox to be thrown in the trash.
It's like the husband who forgets his wife's birthday and goes and buys whatever blender is on sale down the street just so he doesn't show up empty-handed. His wife would probably be less hurt if he just didn't bother at all.
Like the Redditor herself said: If she'd received nothing at all, she'd have probably forgotten about it. But receiving a generic card with her name spelled wrong? That's the kind of thing you remember. No one's saying today's brides and grooms have to be Emily Post, but… come on, guys.
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
