Wedding thank you card etiquette: Everything you need to know

Congratulations on your big day! We hope it was everything you wanted it to be and more. Now that that’s out of the way, there’s one final little thing on your to-do list, thanking your guests and everyone who helped make the day special.

Show your gratitude to your guests with thank you cards to reminisce about the special day they shared with you and your partner. In this article we’ll teach you everything you need to know about wedding thank you cards—so you can spend a little longer soaking in the love of your family and friends. We will also provide you with the must-know wedding thank you card etiquette, and what to write on a wedding thank you card following your wedding day.

Whether your wedding consists of a small intimate party or a group the size of a small country, there’s no doubt that a lot of thought has gone into making it all come together. It’s nothing if not polite to thank them all for their support, contributions, effort, hard work, and most of all, love.

TIP: Your wedding day can pass in a quick blur! Keep note of who helped you with the weddings, the gifts that were given, and the general support that was shown at this special time. While this may seem a little uncomfortable or awkward, noting these things will mean you will be able to pay gratitude where it’s due and avoid the even more awkward situation of thanking someone for the wrong gift or forgetting to thank someone for something they did.

The decision of choosing a thank you card template is often a simple one. Wedding thank you cards can often match the rest of your suite of wedding stationery. However, if you’re keen to mix things up a bit, choosing a wedding thank you card design that works well with your personality or wedding aesthetic can be a bit more time consuming and take more thought.

If your invitations, save the dates, menus, and signage are all minimalist, it only makes sense to go with a minimalist design for your wedding thank you cards over one that is perhaps more abstract or has a geometric design. Not everything has to be exactly the same as this may get a little bit boring, but too many variations and differences for the sake of difference may make your wedding stationery seem a little messy. Make sure that the styles you choose complement each other. You can also create a save the date video to amplify your social media announcement.

Remember, it’s not only the style of your wedding stationery that’s an important factor in choosing your wedding thank you cards. The style and aesthetic of your wedding are just as important. A modern wedding with a rustic theme is probably not going to have a very formal thank you card with gold embroidery, while a very formal traditional wedding isn’t likely to have a cute fluffy wedding thank you card that feels completely detached to the theme of the wedding. Remember, it’s not only the style of your wedding stationery that’s an important factor in choosing your wedding thank you cards. The style and aesthetic of your wedding are just as important. A modern wedding with a rustic theme is probably not going to have a very formal thank you card with gold embroidery, while a very formal traditional wedding isn’t likely to have a cute fluffy wedding thank you card that feels completely detached to the theme of the wedding.

TIP: Creating a professional thank you card is easy with Canva. You can filter templates by theme, style, color, or what’s popular until you find a design that you connect with or one that your gut agrees with. Remember you can always change the fonts, customize the colors, and reposition elements in all Canva wedding thank you card templates.

Here are some examples of some of our favorite wedding thank you card templates in Canva.

• A simple and elegant design creates an impact. This traditional wedding thank you card template is perfect for any couple looking to share a favorite memory gem from their wedding photo collection with their family, friends, and loved ones. The edge-to-edge background photo and clean fonts and color scheme add understated sophistication to the template.

• There’s no better way to say thank you on your wedding day than by sending a heartfelt thank you postcard complete with watercolor roses and a wooden pattern in the background. With Canva’s infinite options for customizing your card, your token of gratitude will become a showcase of your creative ideas.

• Send sweet thank you cards to your guests with this simple collage of your wedding photos! Charming and sweet, all this template needs is a collage of your three favorite wedding photos and your short thank you message which you can add using the text editor and its library of customization tools, fonts, and colors.

• Say thank you with this funny yet sweet wedding thank you postcard. It’s a simple minimalist design with illustrations from our media library that will have anyone feeling the warm fuzzies. Finalize and print this postcard as is or get creative. Start customizing with your sweet and heartfelt message using bold font styles or ready-made typography designs all from within Canva. Drag and drop in other witty graphics, a bordered frame, or a few decorative lines as finishing accents.

• You can easily turn this save the date postcard, with its vintage look and peach background, into a wedding thank you card with Canva. Add a touch more creativity by tweaking the colors and fonts too! You can also find more leaves and flowers in our library.

TIP: Create your wedding thank you cards before your big day along with your other wedding stationery—it's likely you'll want to send them as soon as possible and want to have them at hand instantly to write down all the memories you don’t want to forget.

Thank you cards with photos or portraits are an increasingly popular choice and add a lovely touch to your wedding thank you cards. While having wedding photos can often take a lot of time—having to tussle back and forth with a third party wedding stationery provider—in Canva you can drop your images into a preset template and have your wedding thank you card ready in a matter of minutes.

Remember, your main priority is to express your gratitude, so don’t get caught up in trying to find that ‘perfect’ photo if it means that you won't be sending those cards out the door.

In a word, everyone. Think of the bridal shower your friends organized for you. That person who picked someone up from the train station for you. That friend who recommended a baker or band. The ones who directed all the traffic on the day. Or those who stayed to help clean up. And everybody whose smiling faces made up the joyous blur of your big day.

You want to make sure you are thanking everyone who is any part responsible for helping your big day run smoothly. As well as thanking just those who have given you gifts for your big day, you want to make sure you thank those who attended, those who helped you host the day, your vendors who went above and beyond, and those who in any way helped with the preparation. Most importantly, you want to thank both sets of parents.

TIP: Stay in everyone’s good books—send wedding thank you cards even to those who RSVP’d no. Say something along the lines of the fact that you missed them, and would have loved for them to have been there but also that you understand why they couldn’t make it, and something specific that made you think of them. Remember not to convey any form of guilt in your message!

While in the good old days thank you notes were always handwritten, with software like Canva you can now stop worrying about things like your handwriting and focus on what you want to say.

The key thing to remember is that you should be unique in every message you send. Following a formula when you do this might make things easier—try saying something general and sincere about how having them there made your day, and then go into the specifics of what they did, said, or offered that you truly appreciated.

Mention a gift and how much you appreciate it. For gifts of money, there is no need to state the specific amount, simply thank them and let them know how you plan to use it. Be gracious and sincere with your appreciation. Focus on the positive; don’t mention if you dislike the gift, received more than one or are planning to use the money to pay off debt.

Keep what you say simple and genuine. There’s no formula and it’s purely the thought that counts. You can use words like thankful, grateful, gratitude, generous, helpful, surprising, amazing, kind, thoughtful, caring to set the tone in your wedding thank you cards.

Simple is always best when it comes to the message. People often get stuck on what to say and end up sending nothing at all. A thank you card that expresses sincere gratitude is appreciated no matter how it’s said.

While it’s easy for life admin tasks such as writing wedding thank you to take the back burner on your to-do list, the traditional protocol would suggest that you send them in the first three months. Ideally, you want to send these cards out while all the memories are still fresh in your mind.

If your wedding was the size of a small nation you’ll want to set aside a few each day that you can work your way through. Make sure you pay equal amounts of attention to each card and pace yourself through several cards each day.

Share the load between you and your partner—you can write to your family and friends while they write to theirs. Sign both your names on every card and that way you’ll get through the pile much faster and add that extra personal feel to each card.

Say thanks to your guests in a sincere and personalized way. Seal your custom thank you cards with wedding themes and elements you can customize in a design and print from Canva.