Wedding stationery
Do wedding thank-you cards have to be handwritten?
This gets asked in a slightly guilty tone, usually by someone looking at a hundred and eighty cards. The etiquette answer is genuinely yes. The useful answer is that there are four ways to get there, one of them is free, and only one of them is a mistake.
The message inside should be handwritten. The card can be printed, the envelope can be printed, and nobody minds. What guests react to is a printed message with a signature underneath, because it reads as something issued rather than written.
Why the handwriting is the part that matters
A wedding thank-you card is not carrying information. The guest already knows you received the gift and already knows you are grateful. What the card demonstrates is that you spent a few minutes on them specifically - and handwriting is the only part of the object that proves the minutes were spent.
That is also why the specific-detail sentence matters more than the wording. Naming the actual gift and what happened to it does more work than any amount of elegant phrasing.
The four ways through a pile of cards
1. Write them yourself
Still the right answer for most weddings, and free. A hundred cards is two or three evenings. If your guest list is under about eighty households, stop reading here and go and do it - this is a job that gets harder the longer it is left, and no service improves on a card you wrote yourself.
2. Split the pile properly
Both names go on every card, but only one person writes each. Divide by whose side of the family the guest belongs to, so each note is written by the person who actually knows them. This halves the work and improves the cards, which is a rare combination.
3. Printed card, handwritten message
Buy or design the card with your names and a photograph on it, and leave the inside blank for the message. This is what Australian wedding stationers are set up to sell you and it is a completely legitimate answer. The printing is doing the decoration; you are still doing the thanking.
4. Have them written with a pen
A writing machine holds an actual ballpoint and moves it across the card. It is not a handwriting font printed by an inkjet - the ink sits in the fibres of the paper, the pressure varies, and no two cards come out identical. Each one can carry a different message, so the guest who travelled from Perth gets a different card from the guest who gave a vase.
Being straight about the limits: this cannot imitate your own handwriting, and we would not pretend it can. It is our hand, consistently, not yours.
The one to avoid
A printed message in a handwriting-style font with a real signature underneath. It is the only option here that is actively worse than doing nothing yet, because it looks like an attempt to be seen to have written rather than an attempt to write. Guests spot it, and what they spot is the intent.
What having them written costs
Wedding thank-yous are short - around 40 words - and usually want a handwritten envelope, since the envelope is the part the guest sees first. On that basis, as indicative figures before postage and before the cards themselves:
- 100 cards - about $3.83 a card, $420.86 in total.
- 150 cards - about $3.26 a card, $538.24 in total.
- 250 cards - about $2.79 a card, $768.40 in total.
The per-card figure falls as the number rises because setup is a fixed $165.00 spread across the run. The calculator will price any combination of quantity, length and envelope, and it does not ask for an email address to show you a number.
Where we are not the answer
Our minimum is 100 cards. Below that the setup dominates the price and you would be paying a premium for something you could do yourself in an evening - so if your list is sixty households, we would tell you to write them.
We also do not print or supply the cards. We write on stationery you have chosen, which means the design decisions stay with you and your stationer.
And if the reason you are reading this is that the wedding was months ago and the cards never went, late cards are still very much worth sending - the recovery is easier than the guilt suggests.
Common questions
Do wedding thank-you cards have to be handwritten?
By convention in Australia, yes - the message inside should be written by hand. There is no rule being enforced, but a card whose message is clearly printed reads as an announcement rather than a thank-you, and guests do notice. The card itself can be printed; it is the message that should not be.
Is it rude to send printed wedding thank-you cards?
A printed card with a handwritten message is completely normal and is what most couples send. A card where the message itself is printed and only the names are signed is the version people react to, because it makes the thanks feel issued rather than written.
Can you pay someone to write wedding thank-you cards?
Yes, and it is more common than couples expect. We write them with a real ballpoint pen rather than printing a handwriting font, from 100 cards up. Below 100 we are not the right answer and will say so.
What does it cost to have wedding thank-you cards written?
For a short message of about 40 words with a handwritten envelope, an indicative figure is $3.83 a card at 100 cards, falling to about $2.79 at 250. That is before postage and before the cards themselves. The calculator gives a figure for any combination without asking for your email address.
Will guests be able to tell it was not written by us?
They will see real pen on real paper, with the pressure and letterform variation that comes from a pen physically moving. What we cannot do is imitate your own handwriting, and we would not claim otherwise - if a guest knows your hand well, they will know it is not yours. For most guests the honest question is whether the card feels considered, and a written card does.
Keep reading
Thank-you card wording
Thirty wedding thank-you card wordings for Australian couples, grouped by what the guest actu…
When to send them
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Handwritten cards
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Pricing
Work out an indicative per-piece and total cost for a handwritten campaign. Change quantity, …
If you are outsourcing them
Written cards are quoted like any other work, from the minimum order upwards. The calculator will price a guest list.