Hotel room block etiquette

peachy13

Our wedding is taking place over an hour from where we and most of our guests live, so we ended up blocking off rooms at two hotels. One hotel is already full and the other is half full. The wedding party and close family have all booked their rooms at this point (except for one groomsman and his gf) but then there are some other friends and family members who I am 99% sure will want to stay over who haven't booked their rooms yet. Is it okay to nudge some of these people to book their rooms or would that be rude?

Also another question I have is when our blocks on the hotel rooms are all reserved and a guest wants to book but cannot do to no vacancy, do I have any obligation to help them find a hotel room? (there are many other hotels in the area; I just blocked rooms off at the two best ones). I have a suspicion that come crunch time and the hotels are full, people will be reaching out to me asking me what to do.

[Deleted User]

peachy13 said:

Our wedding is taking place over an hour from where we and most of our guests live, so we ended up blocking off rooms at two hotels. One hotel is already full and the other is half full. The wedding party and close family have all booked their rooms at this point (except for one groomsman and his gf) but then there are some other friends and family members who I am 99% sure will want to stay over who haven't booked their rooms yet. Is it okay to nudge some of these people to book their rooms or would that be rude?

Also another question I have is when our blocks on the hotel rooms are all reserved and a guest wants to book but cannot do to no vacancy, do I have any obligation to help them find a hotel room? (there are many other hotels in the area; I just blocked rooms off at the two best ones). I have a suspicion that come crunch time and the hotels are full, people will be reaching out to me asking me what to do.

This is when you suggest Hotels.com.  "Wow, I'm really sorry our hotel doesn't have any more vacancies.  It's so great that so many people want to come celebrate with us.  I don't know your budget for a room, but the zip code for that area is 95678 if you want to check out hotels.com or another website.  Can't wait to see you there!"

loveislouder

I would let them be. If it came to "crunch time" and I I didn't have a hotel room, that would be all on me for not getting my ass in gear beforehand.

arrrghmatey

"You snooze, you loose."

If hotel blocks are full, then the guests who waited too long will have to make their own accommodations. PP had a good suggestion by directing them to hotels.com or another booking site. You can even give them names of other nearby hotels. They just won't be at the same hotel as most of the other guests and may not get the special rate.

I wouldn't nudge them, because their lodging is not your responsibility--you already did hotel blocks, which was a courtesy on your behalf.

thisismynickname2

Agree on no nudging in general and you're under no obligation to help people find a room. 

Our hotel where our block was sold out due to a conference. We tried to find another block at another hotel but were denied due to said conference. 

My bridesmaid, who booked her hotel in our block many months in advance, put it perfectly: "You sent out STDs 9 months in advance. Your website had the hotel block info. If people are two weeks out without a room, that's on them." 

MandyMost

I nudged. I don't feel bad about it. About a week before the hotel blocks "closed" I sent an email to my friends from out of town with a friendly note along the lines of  "Hey guys, hope to see you at the wedding in a couple months, or if you can't make it hope to plan something soon to get together! If you're planning to book a room for the weekend, the hotel block expires next Friday. Rooms in the block are $200/night, which is much cheaper than a typical hotel room in the area. No pressure to stay there, just wanted to give you a heads up/reminder!"

A number of my out of town guests ended up staying with local friends or family and not needing a hotel room. But some definitely used the reminder to book their room, and thanked me for the reminder. 

As a guest, I wouldn't mind the "nudge" at all. 

whovianstark

MandyMost said:

I nudged. I don't feel bad about it. About a week before the hotel blocks "closed" I sent an email to my friends from out of town with a friendly note along the lines of  "Hey guys, hope to see you at the wedding in a couple months, or if you can't make it hope to plan something soon to get together! If you're planning to book a room for the weekend, the hotel block expires next Friday. Rooms in the block are $200/night, which is much cheaper than a typical hotel room in the area. No pressure to stay there, just wanted to give you a heads up/reminder!"

A number of my out of town guests ended up staying with local friends or family and not needing a hotel room. But some definitely used the reminder to book their room, and thanked me for the reminder. 

As a guest, I wouldn't mind the "nudge" at all. 

I like this. I received something like this from my friend and I appreciated the reminder. Yes, I am an adult but I'm also busy and I tend to forget things.

MyNameIsNot

I'm going to go against the grain and say that I would probably expand the blocks at this point. If your ticker is correct and you are still 5 months out, I would expect that the majority of your guests haven't even thought about booking yet. With 75% of the blocked rooms filled already, I think that you're likely going to run out of space very early. Blocks are always voluntary, but I would want everyone who wanted to use it to be able to. 

I don't think you should start nudging now, but a nudge in the last month before the wedding, right before the block ends and the rooms are released to the public would be reasonable. I got a nudge about 3 weeks before for a wedding we went to in April. I appreciated the reminder right before the discount expired. 

STARMOON44

Can you expand the blocks without a charge? I'd do that if you can but otherwise nothing.

jacques27

Your post is a little confusing - is the entire hotel full or just your room block full?  I would expand the room blocks and/or find a third hotel with space.

I think a polite reminder closer to the actual wedding is ok.  More than one reminder or a reminder this far out (if you are 5 months out) is excessive.

I know for myself, even if I'm 70-90% sure I'll attend, I'm commitment-phobic when it comes to committing to social functions.  I don't want to prepay for a hotel room (unless they have a full refund policy within a certain timeframe) and then find out about a big project at work that might mean my plans would change (which happens frequently to me, because it's always "No No No" until the funding goes through and then all of a sudden it's a big emergency to get it done as soon as possible with usually only a few weeks notice).  So you'll likely have a good portion of people want to wait until closer to the date to book. 

SP29

Also a bit confused- if it's your room blocks that are almost full, it would be considerate to extend them if you can, "Hey hotel- It looks like we're having a lot more guests than anticipated looking for accommodations, could we ad 10-20 (or whatever) rooms to our block?".

Otherwise, I wouldn't nudge. If you gave out the hotel information and let guests know when the block gets released, it's on them to book. 

No, you are not required to find lodgings for your guests. Honestly- they are adults and that's what google is for. BUT if they ask you can always direct them. 

We went to a wedding once on Vancouver Island. Totally missed the room block date (my fault)- hotel was full. Called around to a bunch of places, turns out there was a dragon boat competition going on in the area- LOTS of places were full. But still, I used the internet to look up hotels in the area and started making phone calls. 

haleyk620

I would just send those that you think will need a room within the block a quick note. For our June wedding, the block is closed after 5/18/15 and there were still several members of the wedding party even that had not yet booked a room. I just sent them a quick text to let them know they should book soon if they are planning to do so in order to get the discounted rate.

The only rooms left at the hotel for the weekend of the wedding are currently reserved under our block, and the wedding is in a small town, so I would hate for guests to struggle on their own to find rooms. 

peachy13

Thanks everyone! Yes, our room blocks are almost full (not the hotel -- although the first hotel actually is only 40 rooms and we DO have the whole place booked). I'm planning on calling the second hotel to see if we can obtain more rooms.

MandyMost

I would only try to add more rooms if you really think they'll be filled. Can you do a quick count of who you think will want a room, and see if you think you need to add more rooms?

As for the nudge, the only time to do this is like a week or so before the room block "expires" and any remaining rooms are released to the public for a higher price.  Maybe that's 2 weeks before the wedding, maybe it's 2 months.

Also, when I sent my email about rooms to my friends, I mentioned that if they needed to cancel their room to let me know, because someone else might be looking for one. And it turned out that we had this exact situation. Last-minute one of my bridesmaids accomodations (to stay with a friend) fell through, and they needed a room. Luckily my mom had booked a room for my brother that he ended up not wanting, so she was going to cancel. I just had the hotel switch it to my friend's name instead!

southernbelle0915

peachy13 said:

Is it okay to nudge some of these people to book their rooms or would that be rude? You can just factually inform them that there's no more room at ABC hotel and XYZ is already half full. 

Also another question I have is when our blocks on the hotel rooms are all reserved and a guest wants to book but cannot do to no vacancy, do I have any obligation to help them find a hotel room? No. People are responsible for their own lodging. If they know about the hotel blocks and fail to book something, it's their problem to solve. As sweet as it would be to try and help, you can't be playing camp counselor in the weeks before your wedding. They're adults just like you and they can put the effort into figuring it out.