Results!!!

Thank you for all your responses to our poll about who writes wedding thank you notes. It was quite illuminating!

Since it’s us, we had a great chat about it and the implications of the results.

Jaya: First off, we can just cast away these two couples who didn’t write thank you notes?

Victoria: Yes, who DOES THAT! Monsters! (If our one groom who wrote the most notes wants to volunteer himself, we can give him a prize!)

Jaya: Ugh, no thank you notes is the worst. Unless they didn’t get gifts?

Victoria: They got gifts, I can guarantee it.

Jaya: Hahaha. Okay, so what I think is interesting is all the women who justified why they wrote all the notes. There were so many reasons.

Victoria: They did! Well, the ones who left us comments in various places.

Jaya: Yeah. But it was either they had better handwriting, they had more time, they had the address list or the gift list, etc. All reasonable but like…still not reasons, to me. Your husband can read a gift list.

Victoria: Yeah, the handwriting especially is a good example of learned helplessness. Do not stand for it!!!!!

Jaya: Oh man I have shitty handwriting, you just take more time with it. Yes do not stand for that!

Victoria: Consider it an opportunity to practice.

Jaya: You will be writing more thank you notes as a couple. I mean, I will admit that now when it’s just one note at a time, I tend to write it, because I tend to think of it. Next time, remind me to be like “we need to write a thank you note. You do it.”

Victoria: Haha I will! But like, writing 150 thank you notes or whatever, is a LOT of work. And, speaking in generalizations, generally the bride has also done the most work in planning the wedding. So maybe grooms should be writing most of the thank you notes to balance that–kind of a like, you cook and I’ll do the dishes sort of swap.

Jaya: I guess the reason I understand most is impatience. Either I can remind someone else 8 times to write a thank you note, or I can just do it myself.

Victoria: Yeah, ugh. It’s so frustrating- this thing that women have the burden of overseeing that things get done because everyone will be mad at THEM if they haven’t. And when you have to nag and nag it just becomes easier to do it yourself. Until you are doing it ALL yourself.

Jaya: And I did find it interesting that of the same sex couples, all of them split them.

Victoria: Me too!!!! That’s super great. Love them.

Jaya: Learn from themmmmm. C’mon straight men.

Victoria: Seriously. Although, apparently in 55% of couples, they split them equally. Which is good if it is true.

Jaya: Yay! Yes.

Victoria: But I kind of don’t trust it–I imagine there is a degree of “oh we split it, he wrote 20 and she wrote 80.”

Jaya: A few people commented that in splitting it, they wrote notes to “their” list. Which I slightly balk at because you’re married, it’s your collective list now. I believe we did an equal split, and we had a spreadsheet. I started at the bottom, he started at the top, and when I got halfway I stopped. I did it faster though. So for a general tip, make a spreadsheet of all your guests, what they got you, and whether you’ve written a note.

Victoria: I think it could also be a fun date night–like get some takeout, have some wine, write some notes. (Actually I have an upcoming post about how to make writing TYNs fun).

Jaya: It’s just…it’s not that hard. For about two weeks after we got home from our honeymoon I wrote five a night.

Victoria: Yeah! And if you write them as the gifts come in (which you should!) it’s even easier.

Jaya: Oh yeah! We did that, we just still had the bulk afterward.

Victoria: Ahhh, interesting. I always imagine that most people send their gifts a month or two before the wedding (since that it what I do, lol).

Jaya: Lots of checks. Lots of people who send gifts and then bring checks.

Victoria: WHATTTT?!?!?!

Jaya: Yeah that was ridiculous.

Victoria: Brb gotta go get married.

Jaya: So yeah, I’d say a good 2/3 of the gifts came on the day.

Victoria: WOW my WASPy expectations are EXPLODED.

Jaya: Hahahaha but it’s just like, you take your trip, you come back. you spend like 20 minutes a night each doing this.

Victoria: Totally, and like, do them together.

Jaya: Yes, make dinner, and sit down and do it while you eat or something.

Victoria: I like doing unpleasant things together so that you KNOW you are spending equal time on them.

Jaya: Yes! Also, even though I don’t like the idea of his and hers lists, I do think being the one to write notes to each other’s family is nice. I think I wrote all the notes to his aunts and cousins and family friends, and he did them to mine, even though yes, every note is from both of you.

Victoria: Awww yeah. I like that, because then especially for the bride’s family, they know he is a decent person. Where, hopefully, with his family he has always been sending thank you notes so they already know he is a decent person.

Jaya: Yeah. I have heard, elsewhere, the argument that if it’s important to just one person in the couple, it’s their responsibility. And I just want to go on the record that I wholly disagree. I’m pretty sure I was more concerned about thank you notes. But the point is we’re married and it’s a joint responsibility now.

Victoria: Yeah! And like, there are probably going to be tons of important stuff that comes up in your marriage that is more important to one person but needs to be split. I always say this about chores–like yeah, maybe one person has a higher level of cleanliness, but unless you want to live in a pigsty, the messier person needs to make an effort to- not to mention that dirt and stuff can actually permanently damage your home if it isn’t cleaned regularly and then you lose resale value or your deposit and that’s bad for your whole family. And if you can’t manage to write a few thank you notes, how reliable are you going to be about your kids/pets/other important but boring chores?

Jaya: Hahahaha yes.

Victoria: Not to say that your brand new marriage is going to fail if one person refuses to help write thank you notes, but it seems like a thing you might want to notice and nip it in the bud. And accept no excuses!

Jaya: Yes! God sometimes I have no patience with people. Just do it. Just shut up and do it.