Etiquette
greeninspring
member
Shuttle Bus For Groom's Guests
in Etiquette
As I've posted before, most of our wedding guests will be from out of town. My FI and I moved back to my hometown about a year ago. The state we live in now (Alabama) is not a destination or place with exciting things to do that you'd ever travel to on vacation if you didn't have a reason to come here.
We chose to get roomblocks in the downtown area because that will be a good area for guests to have things to do and we know a lot of them will want to go out to the bars. Our venue (we will have ceremony and reception at the same place) is about 30 min from the hotels we chose. It is also kind of in the country and you have to drive over a one lane bridge to get there.
Both my parents grew up in my hometown and both sets of grandparents lived here. All my extended family (although they live all across the country) grew up with visiting my hometown very often to see our grandparents.
All of my FIs guests will be flying/driving in from out of state and honestly would probably never even dream of coming to Alabama if it wasn't for our wedding taking place. Because of this, we decided to rent a shuttle bus (holds 33 passengers) to take these guests to and from the wedding and reception. The idea is that the bus would be intended for the grooms out of town guests with no ties to Alabama. The groom is paying for the bus. We have scheduled the bus to pick up at the hotel and drive people to the wedding venue then make 2 return trips- one halfway through the reception and one at the end of the night. This will give people the option to leave early if they wish.
Now...I have a lot of family flying in and driving far distances to be here for the wedding as well. All of my family as I mentioned has been to Alabama many many times before. However a few of them have found out about the bus and have started to ask some questions regarding it. My family loves to drink so I know a free ride probably sounds great to them.
Ideally we would be able to provide this bus transportation to everyone but since it only holds 33 passengers, we will likely only be able to fit the grooms guests.
My question..is this rude to only offer this bus to the grooms guests? Should we try to find a bigger bus (that would likely be much more expensive and also this smaller bus is rated to safely drive over the one lane bridge)? Unfortunately this is the only 33 passenger bus available in our whole town (it's a small town). Just trying to find out how much etiquette we might be breaking here...
We chose to get roomblocks in the downtown area because that will be a good area for guests to have things to do and we know a lot of them will want to go out to the bars. Our venue (we will have ceremony and reception at the same place) is about 30 min from the hotels we chose. It is also kind of in the country and you have to drive over a one lane bridge to get there.
Both my parents grew up in my hometown and both sets of grandparents lived here. All my extended family (although they live all across the country) grew up with visiting my hometown very often to see our grandparents.
All of my FIs guests will be flying/driving in from out of state and honestly would probably never even dream of coming to Alabama if it wasn't for our wedding taking place. Because of this, we decided to rent a shuttle bus (holds 33 passengers) to take these guests to and from the wedding and reception. The idea is that the bus would be intended for the grooms out of town guests with no ties to Alabama. The groom is paying for the bus. We have scheduled the bus to pick up at the hotel and drive people to the wedding venue then make 2 return trips- one halfway through the reception and one at the end of the night. This will give people the option to leave early if they wish.
Now...I have a lot of family flying in and driving far distances to be here for the wedding as well. All of my family as I mentioned has been to Alabama many many times before. However a few of them have found out about the bus and have started to ask some questions regarding it. My family loves to drink so I know a free ride probably sounds great to them.
Ideally we would be able to provide this bus transportation to everyone but since it only holds 33 passengers, we will likely only be able to fit the grooms guests.
My question..is this rude to only offer this bus to the grooms guests? Should we try to find a bigger bus (that would likely be much more expensive and also this smaller bus is rated to safely drive over the one lane bridge)? Unfortunately this is the only 33 passenger bus available in our whole town (it's a small town). Just trying to find out how much etiquette we might be breaking here...
Re: Shuttle Bus For Groom's Guests
Have your family members been to the specific location of your wedding before? Even in areas I'm familiar with (aka visit several times a year), if I'm going to or from a new place I still feel uncomfortable driving, especially at night and after drinking.
We're toying with the idea of creating a Lyft "event," which gives our guests a code they can enter to receive credit up to a certain amount (set by us) for a ride. We would give this to all OOT guests. If you have Uber or Lyft in that area, that may be something to look into instead of the shuttle?
I did attend a wedding with one bus doing two rounds. I think the ride was roughly 20 minutes. We took the earlier bus and pre-ceremony there were beverages out.
I had a few people not stay at hotels and ask if it was okay to ride the shuttle (which I made sure it would be!)
If the party is hopping and really fun, you might not get that many people that want to go back at the halfway point, and then not everyone will fit on the bus on the way back.
Alternatively, if for some reason a lot of people want to go back early (maybe start bar hopping sooner!) and the first bus fills, you're going to have people stuck there for hours (now... they're adults and can try to find their own transportation back but it's still a pisser when they went in expecting transportation would be provided).
Also, I know you said it's a know your crowd sort of thing but I'm actually surprised that you think so much of his family wants the city stuff. When I travel for a wedding it generally goes like this: fly in, find hotel, rest/freshen up, go to wedding, party at wedding, get back to hotel somehow, go to sleep, wake up, get ready to go, leave. ESPECIALLY if the town is pretty boring.
If you don't have to pay anything I'd consider getting an additional block in the close hotel.
Since you know people are interested, I think you have to do this. What would you do if you intended the bus for the groom's family only, and then other guests just got on? Would you kick them off?