Are Wedding Hotel Blocks Necessary?

Lauren&Sean · March 2010

I was just reading something about this on the Snarky Brides board. It sounds like a lot of work for something guests may or may not use. Is it necessary to "block out" a bunch of rooms at a hotel, or is it ok to just put a variety of price points as suggestions on our website? In my experience going to other people's weddings, the guests end up paying more or the same with the blocks as they do going through hotels.com or something. Plus, why would my cousins want to stay next to my FI's great aunt? Sounds awkward.

Anyway, is this rude? I certainly don't want to be neglectful of my guests.

AmoroAgain · March 2010

Nope, I didn't do them.

pumpkinpumpkin · March 2010

It's nice though, as a guest. Because usually room blocks are a fair bit cheaper than regular rates. I find it annoying if there isn't one.

AlexiaANDRobert · March 2010

I'd find one or two hotels just to make things easier on people that aren't familiar with the area or don't use the internet, etc.

It's not that hard to do and doesn't/shouldn't require that much work from you except a name and date to the hotel.

I did two hotels for mine and have no idea who stayed where or if they found their own rooms. The ONLY people I helped were my grandparents and my aunt because they both called me and asked me which hotel was closer to my parent's house.

I'd do it, but not go crazy over it.

Oh, we didn't do OOT bags either.

ZoeTheDog · March 2010

It's not necessary, but it's not a lot of work either.

You call the hotel, find out what their guest rate is, if you like it you sign a contract guaranteeing X number of rooms, and if you get enough people to fulfill said contract, the guests get the agreed-upon rate.

Our hotel is part of the Marriott chain and went from $135 a night to $99 a night for us.

btrflykate1230 · March 2010

We have them because it makes accommodations cheaper for our guests. It's fairly expensive to stay at a hotel in New England during the fall, so it's really nice to have them.

I would do it as a nice gesture.

shellydiane820 · March 2010

I did a small block because we had some OOT guests.

Its not neccessary but it can be helpful to some of the OOT guests. If you don't block rooms, I would at least list some near your venue.

banana468 · March 2010

I think it all depends on the area. If you're getting married on a holiday weekend in a tourist area or the same weekend as a big sports game, a hotel block is actually rather necessary.

We did them for our guests but it was more of a conveneience so they knew of where others might be.

BecW2be · March 2010

We got a great deal on the rate for a block of rooms, and my hotel manager was awesome. He let all guests park at the hotel for the shuttle to the ceremony, whether they were staying there or not.

It's a 10 minute phone call and an information card in your invite. I say do it.

AmoroAgain · March 2010

I listed 2 different hotels on the info card for people to look into, but I also knew that some would choose something that fit THEIR needs instead of whichever was cheapest/closest, blah blah blah. Whatever. I don't think it's a big deal.

AlexiaANDRobert · March 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-hotel-blocks-necessary?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:c162503f-9818-4065-97ee-bac9e158430bPost:5f628759-3d6c-4c83-82c6-b586da576053">Re: Are Wedding Hotel Blocks Necessary?</a>:
[QUOTE]I think it all depends on the area.<strong> If you're getting married on a holiday weekend in a tourist area or the same weekend as a big sports game, a hotel block is actually rather necessary.</strong> We did them for our guests but it was more of a conveneience so they knew of where others might be.
Posted by banana468[/QUOTE]

That is a really great point.

ohwhynot · March 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-hotel-blocks-necessary?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:c162503f-9818-4065-97ee-bac9e158430bPost:be7983e3-22df-4858-a636-e7f1a424b98d">Re: Are Wedding Hotel Blocks Necessary?</a>:
[QUOTE]It's not necessary, but it's not a lot of work either. You call the hotel, find out what their guest rate is, if you like it you sign a contract guaranteeing X number of rooms, and if you get enough people to fulfill said contract, the guests get the agreed-upon rate. Our hotel is part of the Marriott chain and went from $135 a night to $99 a night for us.
Posted by ZoeTheDog[/QUOTE]

That's not the way ours worked at all, and I would strongly advise anyone NOT to sign a contract that "guarantees" so many rooms. We signed a contract saying that the hotels would set aside X number of rooms at Y rate, but if they weren't booked by a certain date, teh rooms would be "released" back to the public. We weren't guaranteeing anything and there was no cost or risk to us.

zippityb · March 2010

I actually went and toured the hotel that we blocked. It was good because I got to see the executive suites and jump on them early (there were only 2) so we could have them to get ready. Most of the OOT guests will be my family, so they'll want to stay in the same place anyway so they can hang out.

Lou2127 · March 2010

I think it's a nice gesture for your guests. It's nice to be able to know a bunch of people who are staying at the same hotel. It seems like all the weddings we go to where the couple have rooms blocked off for guests we run into old friends and family quite a bit - in the halls, checking in, hotel bar, continental breakfast, etc. It's nice!

btrflykate1230 · March 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-hotel-blocks-necessary?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:c162503f-9818-4065-97ee-bac9e158430bPost:36009e9a-a38b-4e74-9889-b925c2dfdc88">Re: Are Wedding Hotel Blocks Necessary?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Are Wedding Hotel Blocks Necessary? : That's not the way ours worked at all, and I would strongly advise anyone NOT to sign a contract that "guarantees" so many rooms. We signed a contract saying that the hotels would set aside X number of rooms at Y rate, but if they weren't booked by a certain date, teh rooms would be "released" back to the public. We weren't guaranteeing anything and there was no cost or risk to us.
Posted by ohwhynot[/QUOTE]

We did something similar to this. We didn't guarentee a specific number of rooms, but they did give us special pricing. It doesn't matter if we book 5 or 15, everyone still gets the same low price.

squirrly · March 2010

It's not a requirement, but it's one of the easiest things you can do for your guests that has a big impact. It helps them all book in the same place so that they can spend more time together. It helps save them money. It usually results in a free room for you and your groom the night of the wedding, and in our case, got us a hospitality suite for our guests for the weekend for half price. I wouldn't have it any other way.

LauraT25 · March 2010

Like others have said, it requires very little work on your part so I figured I might as well since it's fairly convenient. I contacted three hotels via e-mail, and picked the one with the cheapest rate - it was the most painless WR thing I've done so far. \

It's quite a bit less than their normal rate, and I made sure that it costs me nothing and there's no minimum that has to be met. So it doesn't matter whether or not guests stay there, and I'm giving them info on other hotels as well in case they'd prefer a different hotel.

ZoeTheDog · March 2010

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_wedding-hotel-blocks-necessary?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:9Discussion:c162503f-9818-4065-97ee-bac9e158430bPost:36009e9a-a38b-4e74-9889-b925c2dfdc88">Re: Are Wedding Hotel Blocks Necessary?</a>:
[QUOTE]In Response to Re: Are Wedding Hotel Blocks Necessary? : That's not the way ours worked at all, and I would strongly advise anyone NOT to sign a contract that "guarantees" so many rooms. We signed a contract saying that the hotels would set aside X number of rooms at Y rate, but if they weren't booked by a certain date, teh rooms would be "released" back to the public. We weren't guaranteeing anything and there was no cost or risk to us.
Posted by ohwhynot[/QUOTE]

We are also expecting 100 people from out of town...so guaranteeing and getting a contract made MORE sense, because it got the price down even more.

ThePinkSuperhero · March 2010

We didn't do a block- the only people who really would've been interested is our families, and they weren't, so it would've been a waste of time. NYC has plenty of hotels, so we just suggested a few on our wedding website.

[Deleted User] · March 2010

We did a hotel room block because many of our guests are from out of town, anywhere from an hour's drive to a plane ride away. The hotel gave a cheaper rate for the blocked rooms and let us add on as many as we needed for any unexpected guests. It worked out great and was really convenient for guests who didn't know where to stay.

prideeinpynk · March 2010

I used to work in a hotel, and I can tell you that it's much better to do a block than rely on hotels.com or something similar (although hotels.com is the WORST of the bunch).

If you do a room block and for whatever reason the hotel became oversold (yes, it happens, and surprisingly often), normally the group blocks are the first rooms 'protected' (meaning we will pre-block and make sure we save a room for your guests). Just normal guests on their own (what we call 'transient') would be the type of reservations we'd flag to 'walk' (move to another hotel, normally on us but still a PITA).

As for hotels.com rates, they annoyed the hell out of me. Not because of the type of guests or how the reservations were set up, but because I have seen too many times where we would be sold out and someone would come in with a legitimate hotels.com reservation which was never confirmed with our hotel. Basically, they have a shitty system of when they can't get it approved on the computer, they will fax it to us. But instead of waiting for a confirmation #, they will just confirm with the guest and that's that. I am urging all my OOT guests to avoid places like that (I got them awesome rates anyway for having been an associate at the time I made my room block) because of how many times I've seen it go wrong.

I know that was long, I appologize. It also sounds really shady, but every hotel does it. Just want to look out for your guests if it may be a busy weekend for whatever reason (not only holidays, but also look out for conferences or meetings going on at your choice hotel or in your city).

ETA: jeez, that was an essay, adding CNs...

CN: make a room block to protect your guests, don't use hotels.com

futuremrs.stahl · March 2010

They are in my opinion only if you have a large number of out of town guest. Its just the polite thing to do

lyndausvi · March 2010

I also work for a hotel and one that is sold out most of the time. The block protects those rooms from being sold out because of a popular weekend. If you happen to be getting married on a graduation weekend, a city wide convention, a football game or even a weekend with 3 other brides are getting married, well your guests might not even get the chance to book on hotels.com because all the rooms are already booked.

For example last year I was looking to go to Philadelphia in Nov. Pretty big city right? Lots of hotel rooms right? Nope, there was a city wide convention and 90% hotels were completely sold out 3 months before we wanted to go. The few rooms available were all in the $400 range. If you were getting married that weekend and didn't have a hotel block for your guests they would not have any rooms to rent.

So IMO, if you have a lot of OOT guests I would take the time and do the block. We did not have to pay for our block, nor would I have entered into a contract like that. If they are not used, no big deal they get released.. If it happens to be a busy weekend you will be grateful the block was available.

lizzi97 · March 2010

I used to work in hotel sales (ie I worked with meeting planners and brides on the contracts). It should be no problem at all to get what we called a "courtesy block" with no guarantee. If you have a large block, also ask if you can get a honeymoon suite upgrade at the group rate. The discounted suite rate will likely be tied into pick-up.

Check out the rates at luxury business hotels, which tend to have the lowest rates on the weekends.

It you do find a lower rate online for the same hotel where the block is, you can call your sales contact and either ask to have the group rate lowered or the lower online rate removed; the sales managers hate it, but the number of rooms your group picks up will likely affect their quota, so they should at least try to help you.

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