Gift Giving Dilemma: Help! I Lost the Cards that Came with the Gifts

The Etiquette of Gift Giving; a Blog by Ali & Julie

Welcome to our second blog on gift-giving dilemmas. Since we launched GroupTogether.com, we’ve been inundated by questions about the etiquette surrounding gift-giving events. Since so many people ask the same questions, we decided to share their questions and our responses.

Dilemma #2: I Need to Send 'Thank You' Notes but the Gift Came with No Card (or I Lost it!)

I recently hosted a 50th birthday party for my husband and several of the gifts he received don’t have a card. How do I find out who gave what? Please help!

Solution: There are Actually Several Different Ways to Tackle This One

First: if your husband’s friends are a tight knit group, you could just drop in conversation with one or two of his besties that your hubby loves such and such a gift, but it came without a card and he’d really like to say thanks. That should spread the word discreetly and hopefully you’ll pick up a few names!

Second: you could send out a generic ‘thank you’ note to those guests that came to the party, but you don’t have a gift card from. In this you could tell them that it was wonderful celebrating with them and thanking them for their generosity and that you love the gift (but don’t mention it by name!).

Third: and our favourite, is to send out a light-hearted email. Make sure to ‘bcc’ all the guests who may have sent gifts with no labels and ask them for help solving the puzzle. Something along these lines would work:

“Hello to all our beautiful party people. Thank you so much for celebrating Tim’s 50th with us; your presence, smiles and laughter made it a night we will always remember. We also want to thank each of you for the generous gifts you gave and have unwrapped some fabulous books and headphones, but with no card attached. If you were the mystery gift giver, we would love to thank you properly, so please reply and let us know. Many thanks again for being with us and sorry for the mass email!”

We hope this clears it up for you. If not, feel free to ask some follow-up questions. We’d love to hear from you.

Ali & Julie

Co-Founders, GroupTogether.com