What to write in a wedding thank-you card

If you just need one to copy

Three that work for most guests. Change the specifics and you are done.

• “Thank you so much for the [GIFT] and for being with us on the day. It was a better day for having you there, and we are very grateful.”
• “Thank you for your generous gift. It is going towards [THING], which we had quietly given up on. Lovely to have you there to celebrate with us.”
• “Thank you for coming such a long way, and for the [GIFT]. Having you there mattered more than we managed to say on the night.”

If you have more than a handful to get through, the rest of this page is about writing four different notes rather than one note ninety times, which is what stops them going stale.

The four parts of a note that does not sound like a template

Almost every good thank-you card contains the same four moves, in roughly this order. Miss the second and third and it reads like a form letter, however warmly it is phrased.

1. Name the thing. “The knife block”, not “your lovely gift”. Specificity is the whole trick - it proves you know who they are and what they chose.
2. Say what happens to it. Where it lives, what you cooked in it, what the money is going towards. This is the sentence that makes the card worth keeping.
3. Say something only they would get. The speech, the dancing, the fact they drove from Dubbo. One clause is enough.
4. Sign off as a couple. Both names, every card.

Wordings by what the guest actually did

Adapt these rather than copying them - the second sentence is the one that has to be yours. They are grouped by situation because that is what changes the wording, not how close you are to the person.

They gave money

The rule is to name the purpose, never the amount. Cash is the most common wedding gift in Australia and the easiest to thank badly.

• “Thank you so much for your generous gift. It is going straight into the fund for our honeymoon in Japan, which we have been talking about since roughly our second date. It meant a great deal having you there.”
• “Thank you for your very kind gift - you have taken a genuine chunk out of our deposit, and we are extremely grateful. We loved having you with us on the day.”
• “Thank you for your generosity. We are putting it towards the garden, which currently has more weeds than plants, and we will send you a photograph when it looks less embarrassing.”

A wishing well or a honeymoon fund

Both are close to standard at an Australian wedding now and neither changes the rule about not naming the amount. What does change is that you know exactly what the money is for, so say it.

• “Thank you for contributing to the wishing well. It is paying for ten days in [PLACE] that we would not otherwise have had, and we will think of everyone who put something in while we are there.”
• “Thank you for your contribution to the honeymoon. We leave on [DATE] and it has made a real difference to what we could book. Very grateful.”

They gave a physical gift

• “Thank you for the wine glasses - they came out of the box the day we got home and have been in nightly use since. Thank you for celebrating with us.”
• “Thank you for the picnic set. It has already been to the Botanic Gardens twice and performed admirably. It was so good to have you there.”
• “Thank you for the beautiful serving platter. It is far too nice for the way we usually eat, so we are having people over specifically to justify it.”

They travelled a long way

• “Thank you for making the trip from Perth - we know that is not a small thing, and it genuinely meant a lot to both of us to look out and see you there. Thank you as well for the vase, which has claimed the hallway.”
• “Flying halfway around the world for one weekend is an extraordinary thing to do and we are still a bit staggered by it. Thank you for being there, and for your very generous gift.”

They came, and that was the gift

Send these. They are the cards people remember precisely because they are not obliged.

• “Thank you for spending the day with us. Having you there was the part we actually wanted, and we are so glad you could come.”
• “Thank you for celebrating with us - and for being one of the last people on the dance floor, which we will not be forgetting.”

They could not come but sent something

• “Thank you so much for the cheese board, and for thinking of us even though you could not be there. We missed you on the day - let us fix that over dinner soon.”

Parents, in-laws and anyone who paid for something

These deserve more than four sentences and should not be written to a formula at all. If you write one long card in the whole pile, write it here.

• “Thank you does not really cover it. Thank you for the ceremony, for the flowers, and for the hundred things you quietly sorted out that we only found out about afterwards.”

The bridal party

• “Thank you for standing up there with us, for the dress fittings, and for the speech that made my mother cry. You made the whole thing easier and much more fun.”

A group gift from a workplace or a family

One card to the group reads as an afterthought. Write individually where you can, and where you cannot, name people in it.

• “Thank you all for the voucher - it is going towards a coffee machine, which should improve everyone’s Monday mornings as much as ours.”

Your suppliers

Not obligatory, and disproportionately appreciated. A photographer or celebrant who receives a handwritten card will remember you, and referrals in the wedding industry travel almost entirely by word of mouth.

Four things to leave out

• The amount. For the reasons above.
• An apology for lateness. It puts the focus on your admin rather than their gift. Write the card as though it arrived on time. If you are genuinely late, there is a better way to handle it.
• “We hope you enjoyed the day.” Every card in the pile says this. It is filler, and it is where the template shows.
• Anything that reveals the mail merge. If a sentence would work for any guest, it is doing no work at all.

If the engagement cards are still ahead of you, engagement thank-you wording is a shorter and much easier job than this one.

A note on Australian phrasing

“Thanks so much” is fine here in a way it is not everywhere; it reads as warm rather than casual to an Australian guest. Save “we are deeply grateful” for the people who actually paid for something. And if you are writing to older relatives, note that “Mr and Mrs” on the envelope is still expected by a certain generation even where the note inside is first-name.

Writing ninety of them

Sort the pile into the groups above before you write anything. Do one group in a sitting, so you are in the same register for the whole batch and only the specifics change. Most people can manage twenty-five in an evening before the handwriting starts to go.

If the pile is genuinely too big - a two-hundred-guest wedding is four full evenings, and it is the single most common wedding job left undone - there are four honest ways through it, including having them written for you with a real pen.