Lauren writes in with a cautionary tale about relying on your gift registry to help you keep tabs of all the people you need to send thank-you notes for wedding gifts. She was married about a year ago and had finally gotten around to sending out her belated thank-yous when she discovered the registry info was wiped clean from Target’s system.
She writes:
My husband and I were married August in 2009. No honeymoon for us – we came home so I could get back to work at my busy job. Life happened, as it does: holidays, a death in the family, busy times… It wasn’t until this July that I could finally sit down and devote the attention to the thank you card process that it required. We sorted the cards and what packing slips we could as well as printing off the amazon.com gift registry we had (since they had a universal registry option).I pulled up target.com to do the same, only to find that my registry was missing. I called to ask them to send me the registry info, it didn’t need to be reinstated… I just needed addresses and names. It was at this time that I was informed that my registry had been inactive since November and there was no way to retrieve this information. Nothing to be done.
I’m beside myself. Surely, people who had been married before had been involved with the process of setting up Target’s Club Wedd. Shutting down a registry so shortly after a wedding makes so little sense. Culturally, people are usually given a year to acknowledge wedding gifts. I asked myself, “Had I missed where they said they’d shut it down so quickly after the wedding?”
I set up a dummy registry just to see if I’d missed any mention of this. I hadn’t. There’s no fine print, no nothing. And even still… does it make ANY sense to out and out delete someone’s records of gifts sent to them with no warning?! If I had known, you bet I would have been there printing the HELL out of that list. Even with the best organization of packing slips… the nature of wedding as they are, you might miss someone. I can say I feel fairly confident that I have all my packing slips, but I’d hate to upset a new family because I trusted Target to be sensible about the whole thing.
I hope if anything that this will bring some attention to the problem. My recommendation to Target: email the registry “owner” a list of names and email address for the gifts or, HECK, just let them know they plan to delete it. It’s just the right thing to do.
Hey, readers who have recently ruined their lives or plan to do so soon, what do your gift registries do for you in terms of record keeping?
She didn’t read the agreement when she signed up. Most registries (including Target) delete your account after so many months. I think Target’s is somewhere around 13 months. If she started her registry 3-4 months before her wedding, like most do, her registry was deleted well before she even started thinking of thanking anyone for a gift.
Sorry Lauren, no sympathy here. I just got married in September and read all the fine details. You should have paid attention.
Good way to handle this is to get a small notebook (moleskin, composition, etc.) and write down everything you got, who it came from, and even their address in case it gets lost as well in the fray. During showers have one of your brides-maids handle the notebook while you open gifts. At the end of everything open the notebook and BAM you have all your names.
Good luck with your Thank-You cards.
Each time a gift came in, I wrote down who sent it, what it was, the date it arrived and when the thank you was written and sent, crossed it out. This includes the cash we were given.
Simple and effective.
Seriously, how is she handling gifts outside her registry or given in cash?
Hey, readers who have recently ruined their lives or plan to do so soon, what do your gift registries do for you in terms of record keeping?
Bitter much, Phil? Jeez.
What did people do before online registries? Lauren could have asked someone to help her keep track of the gifts as they were received if she was so busy. Then she could have written thank you notes as she went. A few a day is a lot easier than doing the whole thing at once. I just don’t see how she can expect them to keep that data indefinitely.
Not keeping it indefinitely, I was just mostly surprised that it was gone after three months. That was most of the shock.
And I see now that the length of the registry info was in the FAQs… But I usually read FAQs when I have a question… it never really came up before then.
Also, there seems to be a long of anger towards me! I guess all I can say is that I did the best I could with what I had. I appreciate the gifts I got, and the people who game them to me… I was just surprised that everything related to the registry would be deleted in it’s entirety so quickly. All of my gift info is still up on amazon. *shrug*
I guess my biggest problem is that I went into this not knowing quite what to expect or do… so I just did my best. For those of you worried about the other gifts, I had saved the cards with notes on the back of who gave what and an excel spreadsheet. And handwritten notes. And packing slips. And, as I said, I was pretty sure I had everything. I just wanted to be sure. I don’t think I’m a jerk… I was just kind of surprised.
Augh, pardon all the typos! But I suppose people might be snarky about those too?
People are snarky about your entitled attitude, Princess. Put on the big girl panties and admit you acted like a spoiled, entitled child by not sending out your thank you notes earlier.
Yeah, life happens. How would have liked received notes like THAT instead of some pretty nice gifts on your wedding day?
No sympathy for you here, Lauren.
Lauren, I doubt that anyone is actually angry. People just type boldly!
But you opened yourself up to a lot of criticism and ridicule for the…. ‘I am too busy to thank my guests, and gee, now that I’ve finally gotten around to doing it Target screwed me up’ attitude. Rationalize it in your mind if you need to, but that really is what you’re saying.
(Congratulions on your marriage, though!)
I’m not angry, I just think that she is rude and spoiled for waiting a year to write thank you notes. Feigning ignorance is even worse. It takes two seconds to type something into Google to find proper etiquette rules.
I dont know why this even got posted the OP is an idiot. She shouldnt have even opened any cards or gifts without starting a list of who to send the cards to and what they gave (to make them personalized). Not targets fault she is lame and unless they were both in the hospital for an entire year there is no excuse for not sending them for a year. She should just forget it at this point.
If you had sent me a card a year later I would probably say “Who the f*** is Lauren? I haven’t been to any weddings lately?” Then after I remembered who you were, I would make sure I never acknowledged any invitations from you or invited you to anything ever again so I don’t interfere with that “busy life” you got going on there.
My condolences to the groom.
My inner Miss Manners says she deserves it for not sending her thank you notes sooner.
When you register, you are asking for a gift. The polite thing is to make time to send a thank you within a reasonable time frame. Tsk tsk.
We are ALL busy and have jobs, deaths in the family, and so on. You had time to open the gifts, right? Why not take five extra minutes and write down who gave you what? It’s not Target’s responsiblity to hold your pretty little hand to make sure you get it done.
Did she wait a year to use her gifts??
Life got busy – too busy to write a couple thank you a night? How about writing the thank you as you used the gift?
How did this become anyone’s problem besides hers?
I bet she didn’t even pay for her own wedding.
The real lesson here is don’t be the kind of jerk-face who can’t be bothered to write a thank you note until a year after the event. Seriously, I hand-wrote very personalized notes within 2 weeks of returning from my honeymoon, and I don’t consider myself a super hero. Anything beyond two months seems incredibly rude unless both spouses were eaten by sharks on the honeymoon.
While I’m usually not down with blaming the poster, I’m going to have to go with a “no duh” on this one. Why the heck would you expect any business to keep your transaction on file a year later?
And really, waiting a year to send Thank You cards? How amazingly crass. Either be reasonably prompt or skip it, but a year later? Do you just send out thank you cards for Christmas 2007, too?
Culturally, maybe people are supposed to get a year to send thank you notes, but in reality, waiting a year is seriously douchey. Never in a million years would I think that Target or any other company would keep my registry around for almost a year until I decided I would finally grace people with thank you notes. I guess the obvious solution to avoiding this issue is to do what millions of others do–take the time to write it down when you get it.
Whoever wrote this sounds incredibly self-absorbed and entitled.
My registries on Bed Bath and Beyond and Amazon are still alive and well 2 years after the wedding…I use them often to keep track of items we still need (and want) to get for the house. I think BBB TELLS you your registry will be active for one year, but it’s still up.
“She was married about a year ago and had finally gotten around to sending out her belated thank-yous…”
My wife and I have been married two years now…and I think we forgot about something.
My registry didn’t tell me who bought anything off of it. I kept a running list in a Google Spreadsheet from the moment the first gift arrived (in a Google spreadsheet so that my husband and I could both see it and not double up note efforts).
Though that spreadsheet does have a couple of “mystery gifts.” Either put the card inside the box or glue it on, people!
Interesting. Actually, a couple of interesting things here.
1. I see Lauren has actually responded to a couple of comments. Interestingly, they are only comments that support her selfish, immature stance on having someone else maintain her mailing list and not send out thank you notes promptly.
2. She expects Target to maintain her registry for a year after she is married (which is about 9 months too late for sending out thank you notes). I’m wondering who maintained the mailing list for invites in the first place, Toys R Us? (And exactly why can’t she fall back on *that* list?)
Come on, Lauren. Put on the big girl panties and admit that you blew it. Oh, and I wouldn’t expect even a Christmas card from any of those folks at all in the future. A year is completely unacceptable in any society under any etiquette rules.
I don’t know about anyone else, but my wife and I have a rule that no checks are cashed or deposited until a thank you note goes out. Additionally, thank you notes for gifts we try and send out at the same time.
Sucks to be you! I wouldn’t expect an abundance of gifts anytime soon … If I received a thank-you note a year after I gave a gift, I would think twice about getting that couple a gift again. Morons.
I would think by now every one of your guests is disgusted with you. They can spend their money and time searching for the right gift and purchasing it, take time out of their schedules to attend your wedding, and yet you’re ” too busy” to write a simple thank you. Try to see this from their side. You’re just looking for someone else to blame. Target is not the bad guy here.
You cannot expect a company to store data forever for free (especially when you are no longer using the service). I don’t see a fault with Target’s policy, but I guess it is something to spell out in their fine print.
At this point, the OP should just throw in a thank you with the 2010 holiday card.
My wife and I spent our “busy” honeymoon filling out the thank you cards sans clothing. It was a fun game!
I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that we didn’t get married and then do nothing but work for literally 11 months straight.
Admitting fault is the first step OP. Get with the program.
You mean in all that time she was SOOOOOOOO busy that she could not have printed this information out from the registry? Outside of being a self important rude woman, she also expects everybody else to fix her rudeness. If I spent the time and MONEY to get you a fucking gift, give me the courtesy of letting me know you got it, and you will enjoy it.
My life happens to, and I have shit going on. I’m sorry you are busy, but I bet she had time to take the checks to the bank. Time to open the boxes. Time to USE the gifts. I wonder if I told my mortgage company that I have a busy life and I just don;t have the time to write out the check and put a stamp on it and send it, they would feel.
I am glad Target does this, and I hope this snot nose is treated like the rude immature brat she is.
Not to blame, cause that’s what it will sound like, but waiting a year first of all… well.. I mean, people have already noticed they HAVE NOT received their thank you card. LOL Also, they closed it 3 months after you get married, why would they need to hold onto it for you? People did get married before online registries, you keep a hand written list. If I received a thank you card for any event a year after it had happened, I’d be all WTF? I’m sorry, I have zero sympathy because they couldn’t spend a weekend after they got married to write them out. We did ours a week later in one night! We just stayed up and got them done.
Almost a year later and you’re upset that Target deleted old information? Puleeze. Why would anyone think that a company would keep a list that has been dormant for 8 months for an event that was 11 months ago? I was taught to write thank you notes ASAP, I don’t know what this woman & her husband were taught but it is apparent good manners were not on the list.
My wife and I were married on a Sunday and back to work on a Tuesday 13 years ago. At the same time we were in law school and my wife was taking a class that summer while working. Still, despite being busy too, we had our thank you notes done within a few weeks. Every evening we came home from work, looked at our list (that took very little time to create, as we opened a gift, we pulled out the address list and jotted down who gave what) and wrote out a few thank you notes.
The very first task on my “honey-do” list was to write down the “who” and “what” of every wedding gift my wife opened. All it took was a pen and some paper.
“Shutting down a registry so shortly after a wedding makes so little sense. “
And damn near a year later you are worried about it?
-1 for being a dumb assed consumer.
This happy couple needs to take a photo of the Target sign that says: Sorry we are out of (your gift registry). May we suggest (that you grow the hell up and take responsibility for your own laziness and total lack of manners).
Mail a copy of it to everyone who attended the wedding. Done.
Not feeling too sorry for her. You waited a year to thank the people who were thoughtful enough to send you a wedding gift – on time. Hard to fault Target here.
I guess people don’t get married and have kids often enough. Target sucks @$$ at doing registries. If they’re not deleting your registry before your first anniversary, they’re not bothering to take crap off the registry in the first place when people buy it in the store.
On another note, as has evidently been mentioned already, taking a year to do your thank you cards after a wedding is pretty slack! I think my wife and I had ours out in the first month.
I have a relative who says “you don’t send thank you’s to family”. About a year after she was married we asked if she liked our wedding gift. The reply – “Oh we got all sorts of junk at the wedding and put most of it in the basement unopened.” We haven’t sent her a present in years.
Smarten up. It’s not too late.
‘Hey, readers who have recently ruined their lives or plan to do so soon’
Aww, poor Phil — does no one love you? Is that why you’re bitter?
Wow, it didn’t even occur to me to rely on the Target Web site. We had the guest book, and wrote down each gift next to the name of the giver in the book. Between my husband and me, we had thank-you notes sent out within a month.
Did you tear those suckers open so fast you couldn’t stop to make a list of who gave you what? That’s what husbands are for. Delegate, woman! There’s just no excuse for this. Or for taking a year to write your thank-yous. That is FAR beyond acceptable. Thank-yous were the first thing I did when I got back from my honeymoon. I’m especially OCD, but I can’t think of any reason it would take more than a month or two even if you procrastinate.
Wow. I just got married last month, and I’m already feeling guilty that my thank you’s haven’t been sent yet. The day after the wedding, my husband and I opened all of our gifts and recorded everything in a google document. I would never rely on any of my registries to tell me who sent a gift. Eesh. I usually don’t blame the OP, but in this case, it’s definitely NOT Target’s fault.
HAHA, ruin your life because you get married, that’s funny!…
The Thank You Note Consortium is very upset at the OP for not sending out her thank you notes promptly. Please immediately send an arbitrary and generic thank you note to your guest list immediately or incur the fine of $0.44 for each guest.
OP fail. When I got married, I was (and still am) a very busy person, but I still took the time to write out a thank you card right after I opened the gift. This person cannot expect Target to keep tabs for her, especially after a year.