| After
the Wedding
THANK
YOU NOTES
You need to be sure to work very hard at your thank you
notes. Stop and think about it. Someone has taken the time
and effort to go out and find what they feel is the perfect
gift, spend their money on it, wrap it or have it wrapped
and get it to you. They’re happy to share in your joy but
they also deserve recognition for their effort. Do you remember
going to this kind of effort and receiving no note of thanks
or a very stilted and abrupt one that you could tell was
just a duty? Do you remember getting an especially nice
thank you from a thoughtful bride? Put yourself in your
guests’ places.
It doesn’t take a lot of effort to write a nice thank you
note. Even if the gift is horrid, you can find some redeeming
thing to say about it. "We’re so thrilled to have it."
"It’s really unique." "It means so much to
us that you went to all that trouble." "We can’t
wait to use it." You get the general idea.
Your
thank you notes should all go out within one month of your
wedding. That’s not as huge a job as you think. When gifts
start arriving before the wedding, take a few minutes to
write thank you notes for them. Just date them for the week
after the wedding (or whenever you’ll get back from your
honeymoon). Then you can just pile them up and send them
all at the same time.
Please,
whatever you do, take the time to personalize each note.
And don’t print them out or use labels on the envelopes.
They definitely must be handwritten to avoid looking like
you just don’t care.
You
should always send thank you notes to all your vendors thanking
them for their efforts in making your wedding special. It
wouldn’t hurt to send a very special one to your parents
or anyone else who helped to make your wedding what it was.
It’s
nice to include a wedding picture with the notes. But if
you must hold them up in order to do this, don’t. Send the
thank you notes on time. You can always send a wedding picture
during the holidays or at some other time.
GOWN
PRESERVATION
Start
thinking preservation while your taking off your gown. Did
you spill anything on it? Where? Do you know what the stains
are? Take some small pieces of paper and safety pins, write
on the paper what the spill is and pin it to the gown where
the spill is located. That way, the cleaner will have a
much better chance of restoring your gown to its original
pristine condition.
Someone should take your gown to a dry
cleaner who specializes in gown preservation within a day
or two after your wedding. The longer any stains set, the
less chance of removal. The cleaner should use a special
cleaning process and pack your gown and veil in special
acid free boxes with acid free tissue. This process costs
a few dollars more than standard cleaning and bagging but
you’ll have your beautiful gown to pass along to another
radiant bride in the future.
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