Room Blocks vs. Room Suggestions

mrsbanany

This may not be the correct board to post this on but I am not sure where else to put it so forgive me if this is the inappropriate place for this.  We are currently looking into room blocks for our wedding next summer. We are getting married on the Cape so we want to send accommodation information when we send out STDs.  However we have a slight problem, we are hosting an after party at my grandparents summer house about an hour away from the reception headed in the "home" direction for most of our guests. We are getting married in the morning so this after party will be taking place around 6:00pm. Also, since we are getting married in the summer many of the hotels have a 2 night min stay.  Many guests have mentioned getting a room for Friday night since our ceremony is early Saturday morning but we have had mixed results for people's preferences for staying on Saturday night. Would it be ok to just tell guests (on the STD) recommended hotels for the weekend rather than getting room blocks?

southernbelle0915

I would try to negotiate with a hotel to allow a one-night stay. You can have more than one room block - we had 3 (budget, mid-level, high-end). Perhaps one of the room blocks allows for one-night stays. 

I would just put your wedding website on your STDs along with "for hotel room block and other wedding information information, please visit....." and then explain any idiosyncrasies there. 

mrsbanany

Well we aren't getting a wedding website (for numerous reasons) and if we got room blocks we would get more than one but the question is whether to get them in multiple towns, the one of the wedding and the one of the after party.

cookdt5312014

We have this issue but our guests have to stay a minimum of three nights so we are giving them hotels in the area and they can decide for themselves. But we are in a catch 22 the reception venue says we must have room blocks of three nights through them.

theartistformerlyknownas

mrsbanany said:

Well we aren't getting a wedding website (for numerous reasons) and if we got room blocks we would get more than one but the question is whether to get them in multiple towns, the one of the wedding and the one of the after party.

What reasons are those? This seems like a pretty good reason to have them. You don't have to fill it up with all the photo albums and "About Me" crap if that's your reason; you can just remove those pages, only keep what's necessary, and password-protect it.

That being said, I would have them in both towns. Likely not everyone is going to want to travel an hour for an after party, so and then not everyone who goes will want to travel back. And definitely see what you can do to negotiate down the two-night minimum. 

southernbelle0915

mrsbanany said:

Well we aren't getting a wedding website (for numerous reasons) and if we got room blocks we would get more than one but the question is whether to get them in multiple towns, the one of the wedding and the one of the after party.

Both, I guess? 

I mean, since your wedding is in the morning and you know people are coming in the night before, I would say you  need one in the town where the wedding is happening. But then you have this after party planned that's an hour away from the wedding town, so then I think it makes sense to have a hotel in that town in case people need a place to crash that's nearby. But as a guest, it would be a PITA to try and attend both events without avoiding a possible mandatory 2-night minimum stay, a 2 hour round trip car ride, plus I'm assuming a multi-hour gap (between your ceremony and this after party).

mysticl

When considering getting a block you may want to read another thread on this board about room blocks.  The OP is looking at having to pay the hotel about $7500 because people opted not to stay at the hotel they chose.