Reserving hotel rooms

ldcf11206

How do I go about reserving a block of hotel rooms?  How do I know how many I'll need?  I know there will be numerous out of town guests, but I just don't know.  I have no idea how to go about this although I'm thinking it's probably a simple concept...

Brie2010

You call the hotel and say, "I'm getting married on X date. We are inviting X number of people.  Approximately X percent of people are from out of town.  What do you suggest blocking off?"  This is their business, they will have an estimate for you.

Make sure the hotel doesn't require you to pay for the rooms they block that they don't sell, though. 

SarahPLiz

I used www.hotelplanner.com.
I told them how many rooms and what area of town, and it sent me bids from all the hotels inthat area. It separated them by star ratings. Then I could contac thte hotel I wanted directly and negotiate further, or just sign the agreement for the room block.

This way, you can compare all the hotels and their various booking and cancellation policies in one place without having to call around.

squirrly

I went through our guest list and noted all the people that we thought had a high likelihood of attending, and whether they would want a hotel room or not.  Then I blocked that number.  A month before the wedding, any un-reserved rooms in the block get released and there's no cost to us. 

Also, for doing the whole block there, they gave us the suite for our wedding night free.

aml2012

Aargh! why didn't I read this post sooner!  I went through and individually contacted hotels in my area.... hotelplanner.com would have been much easier!  

I've just gone through my guestlist and counted up the out-of-towners who would need a room, figuring a double or suite would be needed for families and a single would be fine for couples.  Then I took that number and added 10 additional rooms to my number just in case people from around town wanted to stay at the hotel for whatever reason.  I'm hoping that will suffice, but honestly you really just cannot be certian of who will come and who will want a room so you can only do the best you can by estimating!