Is Writing Thank You Notes Painful?

It is sometimes painful to write thank you notes. What you have got to do to get over the pain is to change shoes. Put yourself in the gift giver’s shoes. I’m sure they put some thought into your gift. If you had given them a gift instead, wouldn’t you like to know that they appreciated it?

Show Your Appreciation

In your thank you note tell them that you appreciated their gift. Even if you’ve returned it already, let them know you enjoyed seeing them and appreciate the thought they put into your gift.

At A Loss for Words?

If you don’t know what to say in your thank you note, use a trick that my grandmother taught me. When she received a gift she wasn’t sure that she liked, she’d say “Isn’t that something!”  Of course, everything is something!

Use the same trick when you write your thank you notes – write your gift was really something!

Please don’t be rude. Please take the time to thank those that give you a gift.

Thanks,

P.S. Wasn’t this post something?!

P.P.S. Pick out some great personalized note cards here

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One of the essential parts of an invitation is the time of the celebration.

But how should you write the time in the wording on your invitation? Is it correct to use an A.M. or P.M. after the time on an invitation?

Here are a few things to consider:

• Could the time on your invitation be confusing? If your party starts at 4p.m., the “p.m.” is not needed. Only a crazy person would start a party at 4 a.m. (and if you do start a party at 4 a.m., please put the “a.m.” on your invitation).
  If the party starts at 9 p.m. and it is a breakfast party, then please use the P.M. designation. You don’t want people showing up in their jammies at 9 a.m. for your pancake fiesta.
• Are you having a formal celebration? (wedding, shower, rehearsal,…) Don’t use A.M. or P.M. Don’t use these abbreviations. And state 1/2 hour starting times as “half past” – for instance, if the wedding starts at 4:30 p.m., your wedding invitation should say “half past four o’clock“. Correct formal invitations don’t even use numerals – it is proper to spell out the time using words instead of digits (use “six“, not “6“). If there is any doubt about whether the time is in the morning or the evening, use the words “in the morning” and “in the evening“
• Does the party start or end at 12:00? Use “noon” or “midnight” so that your guests will not be confused.
• Is your celebration informal? Sure, use A.M. or P.M.
• Is this a military celebration? Use military time. Can’t remember how to convert to military time?  If the time is after noon, add 12 to it. For example, 9 p.m. is 21:00 in military time. 11:00 p.m. is 23:00.  Midnight is 24:00.  Start over at 0:00 after midnight.

If you’ve decided to use A.M. or P.M. on your invitations, the experts say to use both the letters and the periods (a.m. and p.m.). But we at Poly Graphics will print your invitations any way you would like them. Part of learning and knowing the rules is to know when they can be broken. It is perfectly acceptable to use just the letters with no periods if you like them that way.

Hope that this helps,

P.S. Your goal when writing invitations is to get the important information to your guests. As long as they can figure out what time your party begins, you’ve given them what they need.

P.P.S. As Steve Miller says “time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ into the future”

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The hardest part of creating an invitation is getting the wording right.

Do you try to be funny?

Get right to the point?

Rhyme?

The whole idea is to get people prepared for your celebration – excited about attending, and to give them a hint about what the party will be like.

Make sure to get the basics covered, then add the cute stuff.

Give them this information, at bare minimum:

1. Why are you celebrating? Is the party for a birthday? Mention their name and age.
2. When is the party? List the Date and Time
3. Where is it? Give the address and possibly town and zip code. Giving the zip code on an invitation is sometime frowned upon. But if your guests are not familiar with the area, they may be using a GPS to find the place and the zip code will help them.
4. RSVP (request for response, a French phrase répondez s’il vous plaît, meaning “Please respond”). Do you want your guests to call you or email you to let you know they are coming? List both the Date that they should respond by and how they should let you know.

An RSVP date is usually 3-10 days before your party date – when your guests respond to your invitation it will give you a count of guests that are attending so that you can prepare food and goodies for the right number of people. If you are hiring someone to prepare food for you, they may need to know how many guests you expect a week or more in advance. Sometimes party venues require that you let them know 10 days in advance how many you expect at your celebration.

If you would just like to know who is not attending, say “Regrets Only” and list your phone number or email address or both.

After you’ve got those 4 essentials written down, then search for an invitation design that fits your celebration. Also think about if you’d like to add a rhyme or cute saying.

Happy Wording,

P.S. There are some that say you should never put a zip code on an invitation. If the celebration is informal, I say go ahead.

P.P.S. You could write a book about wedding invitation etiquette.

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Our normal smooth paper or our linen paper.

These photos give you an idea of what the texture is like for each of these types of paper. These are zoomed-in photos – the smooth is much smoother to the touch than this photo looks. And the linen paper has the “woven” look that you see here, but the weave is not as big as it looks in this photo.

The linen paper is nice, has a nice feel, and comes with matching envelopes. Linen invitations and linen note cards cost 10% more than smooth invitations and smooth note cards. The linen paper and linen envelopes cost more to stock, that’s the reason for the 10% upcharge.

Each type of paper is also available in white or ivory (off-white, or natural) colors.

Let us know which you like best for your invitation order.

P.S. The linen paper works great for both formal invitations and informal invitations. We’ve done kids laser tag party invitations on linen paper and they look great.

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Check out Poly Graphics’  new flourish invitations – available in pink, green. blue, orange. and purple. If you don’t see the color that you would like, ask us, and we will add another version in your color.

Thanks to our customer Christa for the idea for this design!  She requested the design and ordered the pink version.

As with anything from PolyGraphics.com, you select the graphic colors, the wording, the font and font color, and online draft review and approval is provided for no additional charge.

What is your favorite color of our new design?

P.S. These can be used for any event – tell us what you are celebrating and we’ll design something special for you.

P.P.S  If you have an idea for an invitation that you cannot find on the PolyGraphics.com website, send us your idea and we’ll see what we can create for you.

Have you celebrated any?

How many does a person usually experience in normal life?

At Poly Graphics we have religious invitations available for 5 out of these 7 sacraments:

1. Baptism / Christening
2. Eucharist / Communion
3. Reconciliation / Confession
4. Confirmation
5. Marriage
6. Holy Orders / Ordination
7. Anointing of the Sick

Usually Baptism is performed on young children just a few weeks old. This is the child’s first sign that the Christian is a Child of God. Celebrate Baptism with your choice of our wonderful Baptism Invitations.

The first time a child of 7 or 8 years old receives the Eucharist is cause for celebration – their First Communion. I’ve written here before about First Communion. Poly Graphics has a great selection of First Communion Invitations.

Confession is also known as Penance or Reconciliation. There are several steps involved in confession – sorrow for sins, confession and absolution by a priest, then penance, restitution and celebration. Confession is a wonderful thing for an individual, but not celebrated with a group. We don’t have any reconciliation invitations, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t design one for you if you’d like to have a reconciliation celebration.

Confirmation is celebrated by children when they are about 13 years of age. It is a sacrament of mature Christian commitment that confirms the baptism of an individual. Poly Graphics has created a nice selection of Confirmation Invitations that are available for your celebration.

Marriage, of course, is the union of a man and woman. The sacrament of marriage grants grace to grow into a union of heart and soul and provides strength and assurance for the couple and their children. Marriage is a public sign of  total commitment. We’ve got formal wedding invitations, fun wedding invitations, along with shower invitations, save the date cards, and rehearsal dinner invitations.

Holy Orders, or Ordination is a celebration of a priest being ordained by vows to lead other Christians by proclaiming the Gospel, and providing the Eucharist and other sacraments. Although Poly Graphics has never created an invitation for Holy Orders, there is nothing stopping us if you’d like us to create one for you. Any of the invitations available on PolyGraphics.com can be changed to fit an Ordination celebration (although some may not be appropriate). All wording, graphics, and colors will be changed to satisfy your tastes.

Anointing of the Sick is not a celebration occasion. Usually given to seriously ill Catholics, this sacrament was formerly known as Last Rites or Extreme Unction. This  is a ritual of anointing the forehead and hands with blessed oil. Anointing of the Sick is appropriate for physical, mental and spiritual sickness. Although we have created sympathy cards, the best we can do for an ill Christian is to pray.

Most Catholics take part in 4, 5 or 6 of the seven sacraments. Only priests and other clergy participate in Holy Orders and they do not usually marry. Anointing of the Sick does not always occur before a Christian meets God in heaven.

I hope you learned something about the seven sacraments. I sure did when I was doing research for this post!

P.S. Most of the sacraments are excellent reasons to celebrate. We’d love to help you invite your guests to your party.

Afraid you are going to word your invitations wrong?

See Don’t Fear the Wording http://ezinearticles.com/?Writing-Invitations-Made-Easy—Dont-Fear-the-Wording&id=5518635

Have you started your wedding plans?

Picked a date yet?

If you expect your guests to have to travel long distances to the wedding, you may want to send them a Save The Date Card. If you have a date for your wedding, but haven’t ironed out all the details you can let you guests know when to plan their trip. Later, when the details are finalized, you’ll send the official formal wedding invitation. But the save the card lets your guests know to start planning.

Poly Graphics has several save the date card designs to choose from. Here are a couple:

More are available to review on our Save the Date page.

While you are planning, we can also offer wedding shower invitations and rehearsal dinner invitations.

Our wedding invitations are nice, but if you are planning a very formal wedding you may want to look elsewhere. If you are planning an informal wedding we’ve got some invitations that may work though.

Happy Planning!