The aftermath of a wedding for me is always a bit of an anti-climax, of course you’ve married the love of your life and you’re about to spend the rest of your life together but then there is all the tidying up and sorting out! One of the great things about holding a wedding at a hotel or somewhere similar is that there is usual a lot of help on hand to sort out all the arrangements, like for example taking down the wedding decorations. But then you’ll get back home and it’ll be time to sort out where to pack away the wedding dress, or who to send away with wedding cake, but even more importantly it’ll be about opening up all the wedding gifts. Your guests would have taken time, effort and money to find you the perfect wedding gift and so I feel that you should offer them the same courtesy when you open the presents. The best way to do this would be firstly in a large space so you’ve got lots of room to spread out… you may have received a lot of presents and so you’ll need somewhere to put them all!
Find a quiet afternoon or evening when you’ve packed away all the other elements of your wedding and when you are feeling relaxed, this might be a couple of days after the wedding (or perhaps even after the honeymoon). Then get down to opening the wedding presents. I suggest you get a pen and paper and start to write down what has bought what. Thank you cards are a crucial part of the wedding process, you should thank all your guests for the gifts that they have bought you. Just a simple note to show your gratitude for what they have given you. Once you’ve opened all the presents, you’re not going to remember who brought you which gift, so by writing down the names and the gifts given while you open them will save a lot of time and brain ache later in the day! It might be a good idea to purchase your thank you cards before the wedding, you could possibly write the cards while you are opening the presents? I’ve spoken to a lot of couples who have recently married and they say, that they intend to send out thank you cards, but it’s finding the time to write them out, that is why it would be a good idea to write out the cards when you open the presents, so that it gets done and you can get them sent out! One less thing to worry about. You could even have the cards printed before the wedding as well, so you can send them out as well as soon as the wedding is over and you’ve opened the present.
You could write a generic message like:
“Thank you for joining us on our special day. You helped to make our day wonderful.”
or
“Thank you for joining us on our special day, the gift you gave was wonderful… but all we needed was you to make our day perfect!”
Something along those lines, lets your guests know how much you loved having them at your wedding and how much you appreciated them and their choice of wedding gift.
