Question?

mosaicmoscato

Hopefully this is the right board to post this! (I appologize if it's not) but I was wondering if you have or are planning to block out hotel rooms for out of town guests? I wasn't going to but I'm not sure what to do or what it involves. Do you have to put down a deposit? My wedding is in South Bend Indiana and I believe there is a large college football game the same weekend which makes me nervous. Help please!

JaxInBlue

We did.  We called the hotels in the area where we got married and compared quotes.  The hotel we chose let us hold a number of rooms until about a month before the wedding.  We put the reservation info on an insert to our invitations, with the group rate and the date by which guests needed to book.  We also put the information on our website. 

We did not pay for any guests' rooms so we did not need to put down a deposit.  I'm not sure we would have gone with a hotel that required us to be financially responsible for the rooms.  We made sure guests had the booking info in plenty of time (we had the block set up when we sent out STDs) and left it up to them. 

If you know your wedding is going to be competing for hotel space with a major sporting event, you may want to see if it's still possible for you to get a hotel block or several smaller blocks at hotels near each other.  If it's not, you should probably put some sort of note on your wedding website or info card so that guests know what's going on and that they may not be able to get a room on the fly. 

cwaggoner07

I did blocks at 2 hotels. One nice boutique hotel, and a more affordable Hyatt. We didn't have to put any money down. There really is no downside to it, especially if you anticipate a busy weekend in town.

mosaicmoscato

Right, I feel bad for not doing this earlier I just thought it entailed much more haha I was thinking of sending the wedding invites with this info a little earlier so that guests could know, is this a good idea? I know some guests won't look at the wedding website, I just want people to be on top of this. Or would sending the invites early be kind of silly?

mosaicmoscato

My wedding is in October so originally I was thinking send them out like mid-august, but if I added the info I was thinking more like July? I'm also just concerned with loosing the invites. Maybe I'll compromise and send them out early august haha

mbody

You need to call a few hotels and speak with them about room blocks, like today! Most will hold rooms until the month before your wedding. So, if you put hotel room block in your invites, just include a line such as, "For your conveience, a block of rooms is being held at _____. For the special room rate, please make reservation by ___ and mention the Smith/Jones wedding."

However, you might have some trouble finding vacant hotels now if there is in fact a Notre Dame game that day. So, that's why I said to call today.

mosaicmoscato

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_chit-chat_question-20?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:14Discussion:d620d84a-5663-47ab-82dc-4033cfccd270Post:f002690b-a37e-4611-8c2e-15cd6271b588">Re: Question?</a>:
[QUOTE]Call ASAP to arrange blocks. A lot of hotels in South Bend have a 2 night minimum stay on home Notre Dame game weekends and room rates are higher than normal.
Posted by ILoveMilkDuds[/QUOTE]

thank you I will call today, and thanks for teaching me how to do this! :)

cnf2013

We absolutely blocked off as many as possible. It was free to block them off, as guests pay for the rooms, not you. We live in a vacation town and also happen to be getting married there. If we don't block off rooms none of our guests will get one. There's never a spare room in the summer in our town. In fact, the hotels do so well here that our rooms are only guaranteed until seven weeks out from our wedding date, then the block gets released because they know they'll fill them even without the weddings help. So not only did we block off rooms, but we're going to make it very clear to our guests that they need to reserve a room ASAP otherwise they'll all be setting up tents in our back yard (joking, really), haha. 

adurant8

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_chit-chat_question-20?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:14Discussion:d620d84a-5663-47ab-82dc-4033cfccd270Post:ebfd38f9-b9f8-44c1-a90a-9c10cb722d86">Re: Question?</a>:
[QUOTE]We absolutely blocked off as many as possible. It was free to block them off, as guests pay for the rooms, not you. We live in a vacation town and also happen to be getting married there. If we don't block off rooms none of our guests will get one. There's never a spare room in the summer in our town. <strong>In fact, the hotels do so well here that our rooms are only guaranteed until seven weeks out from our wedding date, then the block gets released because they know they'll fill them even without the weddings help. So not only did we block off rooms, but we're going to make it very clear to our guests that they need to reserve a room ASAP</strong> otherwise they'll all be setting up tents in our back yard (joking, really), haha. 
Posted by cnf2013[/QUOTE]

That's what we did. Our wedding is in October but the hotel will only hold the block of rooms until the end of July. We sent the information with the save the dates, which we mailed out the end of March.

meganmullen99

We blocked off rooms at a local hotel.  They gave us discount rates and are willing to comp us a couple nights (for a bridal suite) if we have a certain # use the rooms.  When we get invites back we are going to send out info for the room blocks and other things for out of town guests.  Plus, I put the link to the hotel and instructions on our website (address for that was included in our Save the Date Cards).  Blocking rooms is really easy... just do it sooner rather than later because there can be busy times (like conferences) that book the hotel up early.