Nine people you paid did work you'll be looking at for the rest of your life, and a card is the part of the transaction that isn't transactional. Below are sixteen notes across seven vendor types — photographer, caterer, venue, officiant, DJ, planner and florist — plus the one sentence that is worth more to a vendor than everything else on the card.
A vendor can tell a form letter from across the room. One concrete detail — the ten minutes they stole you for, the vegetarian plates, the arch height they argued for — is worth more than three sentences of adjectives, and it is the part they will quote.
Dear Ines, Thank you for photographing our wedding. The thing we keep coming back to is the ten minutes you stole us for after the ceremony — neither of us wanted to leave the room, you were right, and those are the ones we're printing. Thank you for being so easy to have around all day. With thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira Married May 9
Dear Mr. Okonjo, Thank you, and thank you to your team, for the food at our wedding on the ninth of May. Guests who have eaten at a great many weddings told us unprompted that it was the best meal they had been served at one, and the vegetarian plates were treated with exactly the same care as everything else — our friends noticed that, and said so. Please pass our thanks to everyone who worked that evening. With sincere thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira
Dear Saoirse, Thank you for the flowers. We asked for something loose and a bit wild, and you understood what we meant the first time, which we honestly did not expect. The arch is in every single photograph, and we are very glad we listened to you about the height. Thank you for making the room look like us. With thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira Married May 9
Devon — Thank you for reading that room far better than we ever could have. We had a plan for the last hour, you quietly ignored it, and you were right: our uncles have not danced like that since the eighties and there is video. Thank you for a genuinely brilliant night. Bea and Marcus Ferreira Married May 9
Dear Priya and everyone at Ashcombe, Thank you for looking after us on the ninth of May. Two things we keep telling people: the room was ready an hour earlier than you promised, and nobody on your staff ever looked rushed, even when the weather moved the whole ceremony indoors. We hope this gets passed around the whole crew. With thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira
Pick the vendor type, pick a tone, and the generator writes the note — then switch to the whole list to walk every name at once. No signup, and nothing you type leaves your browser.
The Knot and Zola both land in the same place here: a public review and a referral are what wedding professionals actually want, and a private note is what makes them feel like more than marketing. The strongest version is a card that carries both, plus explicit permission to use your words, your names and your photographs.
Dear Ines, Thank you for the photographs — they arrived this morning and we have already been through them twice. You were calm, unobtrusive and completely prepared, and the gallery is better than we knew how to ask for. We have left a review on your listing this week. You are welcome to use anything in it, along with our names and any image you like, wherever it is useful to you. With sincere thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira
Dear Nadia, Thank you for eleven months of steadiness. Three people have already asked us who planned it, and all three of them now have your email address. The review is written and goes up this week — quote any of it, and use our names. We meant every word. With thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira
Dear Saoirse, Thank you — the flowers were extraordinary. We've left you a five-star review and sent two engaged friends your way already. Use our words or our photographs anywhere you like. With thanks, Bea and Marcus
Dear Mr. Okonjo, Thank you again for the dinner — we have been dining out on it for a month. Our review names Teodora and Sam specifically, because they were the two people our guests kept mentioning to us, and you are welcome to use any of it in your own marketing. If anyone thinking of booking you would like to talk to a real couple, please send them to us. With thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira
Two live practices, both defensible. Couples on the forums hand vendors a card with the final payment on the day, often via the maid of honour; the published guides say write afterwards so you can name what actually happened. If the balance is due first, do both — thank the run-up now, and let the specifics go in the second card.
Dear Devon, The balance is enclosed, with our thanks in advance for this evening. You have been quick, clear and extremely patient with a great many emails about a great many songs, and we are going into tonight completely relaxed about the music. We'll write again once we've seen what you do with it. With thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira
Nadia — Final payment enclosed, and a thank-you with it. Whatever tomorrow decides to do, you have already made this the calmest month of the whole year. With thanks, Bea and Marcus
Dear Ines, We held this card back on purpose. We wanted to write it after we had seen the photographs rather than before, and now that we have, it is a much better note than the one we would have written in May. The portraits in the corridor are the ones. Thank you for waiting for that light instead of taking the easy version. With thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira Married May 9
Dear Priya, Writing a few weeks on, now that we can see the day clearly. What we would want a future couple to know is what happened at four o'clock. The rain arrived, you had the ceremony moved inside in about twenty minutes, and we only found out afterwards that anything had changed at all. That is the reason we are recommending you to everyone who asks, and we have said exactly that in our review. With thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira
The one vendor whose job was to say true things about you in front of everyone you know. A note that reads like a supplier review is the wrong register here, whether they are a friend who got ordained for the afternoon, a celebrant who interviewed you for two hours, or clergy who have known one of you since you were nine.
Dear Theo, You got ordained on the internet for us, read six drafts of a ceremony, and then stood up in front of ninety people and made most of them cry. There is no version of that day that works without you standing in the middle of it. This is not a vendor thank-you and you know it. Thank you for being our friend first and our officiant second. With love, Bea and Marcus
Dear Reverend Aldous, Thank you for marrying us on the ninth of May, and for the two evenings you gave us beforehand. The questions you asked in the second of those conversations were harder than we were expecting, and they have stayed with us since. We are grateful for your care, and for a ceremony that felt like ours rather than like a form. With sincere thanks, Bea and Marcus Ferreira
Dear Maren, Thank you for the ceremony. You listened to two long conversations and handed us back fifteen minutes that sounded exactly like us — three guests asked afterwards how long you had known us. With thanks, Bea and Marcus
The wording changes far more by how you actually feel about the work than by which vendor it is. Find your case first, then pick the vendor type in the examples below.
This is the full version and the first two sections below. The card is the warm part; the permission sentence is the valuable part, because a vendor cannot ask for it without it feeling like a favour.
Three sentences thanking them for one real thing is not an insult, and it is a great deal better than an inflated note. Leave the referral line off rather than write one you don't mean — a review you never post is worse than none.
This is the single most useful thing you can tell a vendor, because "the rain came and they moved ninety chairs in twenty minutes" is exactly what the next couple is trying to find out and cannot get from a portfolio.
A friend who got ordained, a celebrant who interviewed you for two hours, clergy who have known one of you since childhood — the commercial framing is wrong for all three. The last section is written for exactly this.
Vendors are the one group where a fourth thing outranks all three: the public review. The card is what they keep; the review is what pays them. Send the card anyway, and put the review in it.
Within three months of the wedding — the same clock as the guest notes. This is the vendor thank-you and what the sixteen notes below are for. Sign both full names and the wedding date: a photographer shot thirty weddings this year. It is not replaced by a text on the night, however warm the text was.
Within a week of the wedding, or of whatever just landed. Send it the morning after, or the hour the sneak-peek gallery arrives — vendors work in a business where silence usually means something went wrong. It buys time for the card and for the review; it replaces neither.
Any time inside the same three months. Use it when the person who did the work has a boss who will otherwise never hear their name — venue staff, the catering crew, a second shooter, a day-of coordinator. It is not the card that person gets themselves. Send both, and name them in each.
The morning-after message is a different job with different wording — post-wedding thank-you texts covers that one. And if the guest cards aren't chosen yet, that is the other half of this job — a separate decision from the words, and one that does not have to hold up the vendor notes — browse wedding thank-you card templates.
A card is kind. A quotable review with your name attached is the thing a wedding professional cannot buy and cannot ask you for. If you are going to include it, include it properly.
"Bea and Marcus" is a guessing game for someone who worked thirty weddings this year. Full names plus the date tells them instantly which day you are, which gallery to pull, and which review is yours.
The owner rarely plated the food or flipped the room. If a specific coordinator, second shooter or server made the difference, name them — in the card, in the review, and in the letter to whoever manages them.
"You're welcome to use our words, our names and any of the photographs" is one sentence, and it releases a testimonial the vendor would otherwise have to chase you for. Newer vendors building a portfolio value it most.
Their listing, their profile, wherever they told you they get enquiries from — not only a private card. If you don't know which platform matters to them, ask; nobody has ever been annoyed by that question.
A promised review that never appears is worse than no promise. Do it in the order that makes the sentence true: leave it, then write "we've left a review" rather than "we will".
Two of these are settled. Two are genuine disagreements between the etiquette guides and what couples actually do, and you should pick knowingly rather than assume there is one right answer.
Settled: don't. Vendors talk to each other, work the same venues, and can spot a template instantly. One specific sentence per card is the entire difference, and it takes less time than agonising over a generic one.
Contested, and worth stating as contested. One camp holds that this was a paid transaction, the invoice closed it, and a note is sweet but owes nobody anything. The Knot and Zola both take the other line: notes, reviews and referrals are what professionals in this industry actually trade on, and a handwritten card is the part they pin up. Both positions are defensible — the honest tiebreak is whether you would recommend them, because if you would, the note is where you say so.
Also contested. Forum practice is to hand a card over on the wedding day with the final payment, often delegated to the maid of honour, which is tidy and gets it done. The published guides say write afterwards, because a note that names what actually happened is worth ten written in advance. Neither is wrong. If the balance falls due before the day, the resolution is two notes: thanks for the run-up now, specifics later.
A short, warm, honest card is a perfectly good outcome, and an over-praised one commits you to a referral you don't want to make. Thank them for one real thing and stop; leave the review line off rather than write a review you don't believe.
If something went badly enough to say, say it directly, in its own message, to the person who can fix it. A grievance folded into a thank-you card is read as passive and answers nothing.
The three-month clock applies to vendors as much as to guests. If you are holding the photographer's card until the photographs land, that is a good instinct — but if the gallery is late, send the card now and write again when it arrives.
Preset for a photographer. Switch the vendor type for your caterer, venue, officiant, DJ, planner or florist — or switch to the whole list and walk every vendor at once.
Describe it the way you'd say it out loud. Never name the amount.
Inside three months, the note doesn't apologize. After that, it does — once, and briefly.
Private by design: the names, gifts and notes you type never leave your browser — every note is written on this page. No signup, no credits, no cap on how many you write.
It isn't obligatory the way a guest note is, but it is close to universally recommended, and vendors keep them. The version that actually helps them is a card plus a public review plus a referral — The Knot and Zola both make the same point, that kind words and recommendations are what this industry runs on. If you would recommend the vendor, write the card and say so in it.
Name one image or one moment rather than praising the gallery in general — "the ten minutes you stole us for after the ceremony" tells them something a five-star rating can't. Then add the line that matters commercially: that you have left a review, and that they may use your words, your names and any photograph wherever it is useful to them.
Both practices are common and neither is wrong. Handing a card over on the day with the balance, often via the maid of honour, gets it done and thanks them for the run-up. Writing afterwards lets you name what actually happened, which is the more valuable note. If your balance is due before the wedding, do both — a short one with the payment, a specific one a few weeks later.
To the person you worked with, by name, and then ask them to pass it round the team. Where individual staff made the difference, a second, longer letter to the manager or owner naming them is the one thing that can actually change someone's week — a card the employee keeps, a letter their boss reads.
Commercially, yes — a review sits where future couples look, and a card sits on a noticeboard. That is an argument for doing both rather than choosing: put the review up first, then write the card, and include a sentence giving explicit permission to quote you by name. That permission is the part vendors cannot ask for without it feeling awkward.
Thank them for the ceremony itself rather than for the service delivered — the question they asked in the second meeting, the line in the ceremony that everyone repeated afterwards, the fact that it sounded like you. If a friend got ordained for the day, drop the professional register entirely and write to them as a friend who did something enormous.
The same three-month window as your guest notes is the standard to aim at, and it is one reason people hold the photographer's card until the gallery lands. Past three months, send it anyway with one brief line about the delay and no elaborate apology — a vendor reading a warm, specific note eight months on will still put it up.
Text My Wedding texts every guest a link, they type their own mailing address, and you export the list in the shape a stationer or a calligrapher accepts.
Your nine vendors you can reach by email. The hundred and twenty guest notes behind them need a street address each, and what you actually have is a list of phone numbers.
Collect wedding addresses · Share your wedding photos · Post-wedding thank-you texts
