Wedding Etiquette Forum

How to have guests pay us [Tactfully!] for their rooms that we had to prepay? (Destination wedding!)

Hi all, first poster here—but I can't seem to find a good solution to this, I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas; would be SO grateful! 

In short, we're having our wedding in Marrakesh, and we've privatized 3 riads (basically like local-style B&Bs) for our guests to stay. Unfortunately, though, the way it works there is that when you privatize a riad, we have to pay in one lump sum—the guests cannot pay the riad directly, and we definitely cannot afford to cover everyone's rooms! 

So we're looking for some sort of system/way to collect payment for rooms, but of course in a tactful way—we don't just want to ask guests to PayPal us/give us money directly, as that seems really tacky (even if we explain the situation, it's just awkward).

To complicate matters further, another thing with riads is that every room is unique (and we have 23 available rooms total), and accordingly have different price points. For this, we can either feature the room details on our SquareSpace site (time consuming, but would be more convenient for guests), or we could direct guests to see the room details on the riads' own websites.

In sum, has anyone else ever dealt with something like this (particularly any form of needing to collect money from your guests tactfully), or otherwise have any other ideas? Again, I would be SO grateful for any thoughts you all might have! 


All the best,
Ashley


PS — So far, the only ideas we've come up with are these, but they each present some possible issues:
  • SquareSpace/Stripe "business" payment: As noted above, we could do payment processing through our SquareSpace site, with each room listed as a sort of "product." But in this case, we'd need to keep a really close eye on each room as they're booked, and remove them from the site as soon as they're booked.
  • PayPal/new "business" bank account/LLC: This would be a bit of a pain/kind of roundabout, but we could set up a little LLC (with some name like "Marrakesh Riad Bookings" or whatever), and direct payments through that. Seems a little deceptive, though we'd be open about it—again, it just feels tacky if we're asking people to send money to us personally.
  • A real hotel booking system: This seems the hardest/maybe least affordable, but we could maybe find some sort of actual booking software/web tool. Kind of seems like overkill for this small purpose though! 
PPS — One last complication: It would be *really* ideal if guests could put down a ~30% down payment (as we had to do with the riads already ourselves), and pay the final remainder closer to the wedding. Especially with some guests being potentially nervous about COVID/shelling out the full amount upfront, this would be really helpful (and help our cash flow situation for other wedding expenses!)... but again, this makes creating some sort of payment system even more complicated! 

Re: How to have guests pay us [Tactfully!] for their rooms that we had to prepay? (Destination wedding!)

  • Since it seems from your post that you're perhaps already committed to the riads, can you hire the services of a travel coordinator/agent of some sort who could be your point person for this? If you are committed to this, you'll need to accept and plan for the cost of all of it, and if you receive any money from the people staying there to consider that as a bonus. It will undoubtly be a headache-inducing committment.
  • akinseth said:
    Hi all, first poster here—but I can't seem to find a good solution to this, I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas; would be SO grateful! 

    In short, we're having our wedding in Marrakesh, and we've privatized 3 riads (basically like local-style B&Bs) for our guests to stay. Unfortunately, though, the way it works there is that when you privatize a riad, we have to pay in one lump sum—the guests cannot pay the riad directly, and we definitely cannot afford to cover everyone's rooms! 

    So we're looking for some sort of system/way to collect payment for rooms, but of course in a tactful way—we don't just want to ask guests to PayPal us/give us money directly, as that seems really tacky (even if we explain the situation, it's just awkward).

    To complicate matters further, another thing with riads is that every room is unique (and we have 23 available rooms total), and accordingly have different price points. For this, we can either feature the room details on our SquareSpace site (time consuming, but would be more convenient for guests), or we could direct guests to see the room details on the riads' own websites.

    In sum, has anyone else ever dealt with something like this (particularly any form of needing to collect money from your guests tactfully), or otherwise have any other ideas? Again, I would be SO grateful for any thoughts you all might have! 


    All the best,
    Ashley


    PS — So far, the only ideas we've come up with are these, but they each present some possible issues:
    • SquareSpace/Stripe "business" payment: As noted above, we could do payment processing through our SquareSpace site, with each room listed as a sort of "product." But in this case, we'd need to keep a really close eye on each room as they're booked, and remove them from the site as soon as they're booked.
    • PayPal/new "business" bank account/LLC: This would be a bit of a pain/kind of roundabout, but we could set up a little LLC (with some name like "Marrakesh Riad Bookings" or whatever), and direct payments through that. Seems a little deceptive, though we'd be open about it—again, it just feels tacky if we're asking people to send money to us personally.
    • A real hotel booking system: This seems the hardest/maybe least affordable, but we could maybe find some sort of actual booking software/web tool. Kind of seems like overkill for this small purpose though! 
    PPS — One last complication: It would be *really* ideal if guests could put down a ~30% down payment (as we had to do with the riads already ourselves), and pay the final remainder closer to the wedding. Especially with some guests being potentially nervous about COVID/shelling out the full amount upfront, this would be really helpful (and help our cash flow situation for other wedding expenses!)... but again, this makes creating some sort of payment system even more complicated! 

    Yikes. 

    A few questions- do your guests have to stay in the riads or can they book elsewhere? If you don’t privatize/ rent the entirety of the riad canneople not from your wedding book there? Can your guests book directly?

    if this is truly the only lodging I think your best bet is to hire a coordinator (or the owner of the lodging) to directly coordinate payments. This takes you as the middle-man out of the equation and you’re not on the hook for managing your guests stays. If that’s not possible I think you budget to pay the costs of the riad into your total cost. I just don’t see any other way to tactfully ask your guests to pay you. 
  • I think, unfortunately, you have to either hold your wedding elsewhere or adjust your wedding budget for the costs of the riads and be prepared to treat them as unrecoverable regardless of whether your guests stay in the riads. There's no polite or tactful way to ask your guests to pay you for any of the costs of their hospitality.

  • If there's a way to back out of the riads I would.  Guests are normally responsible for paying for their own hotel rooms, but I don't think there is a tactful way to ask guests to pay you directly.  Are the riads the only lodging for hundreds of miles?  
  • akinsethakinseth member
    First Comment
    edited January 2022
    Thanks all, but unfortunately the riads and desert venue are already booked/we're definitely not able to change at this point, and guests do know they're paying for their own rooms (and are very excited for the destination/vacation and about the riads—everyone wants to pay for the most expensive ones!). So people are in the loop/totally on board (and it's only about 50 guests total), but I just don't love the aesthetic options.

    That said, after giving it some thought, I think the best solution will be to use our SquareSpace wedding site and repurpose the "store"/booking "business" features to list each room as a separate "product," with all the images and info for each one—and then each time one is selected, that one will be sold out automatically. This way there's no obvious/tacky "you're sending money to the hosts" or confusion over who's getting what room/who booked first; it'll basically function like a booking platform (albeit a labor-intensive one for me!!).

    But anyway, I'm very grateful for all your thoughts and definitely understand where you guys are coming from! I'll keep your thoughts in mind as I design this feature as "tactfully" as possible :smile:
  • I know it's hard to avoid the tacky implications of this, but I think you've come up with a good solution. The hotel thing is one reason I'm not a fan of DW; they kind of blur the line between host and guest responsibilities. But the truth is that it isn't tacky to expect guests to pay for their accommodations, however they are set up, so you don't need to feel bad about this.

    I think I would encourage future couples who are planning DW to just make a list of places the guests can book, and to refrain from getting involved in making paid reservations whenever possible.
  • cchaaggycchaaggy member
    First Comment
    edited February 2023
    I would really love an update on how this went, please! I'm pretty much in the same boat as you were and all the comments I read online about this sort of thing are negative. I feel like people don't actually understand the situation and it's so nice when I read that some couples have pulled this off- it took some coordination, but it wasn't a big deal for the guests, who understood that they would just need to pay for a hotel no matter what, and yes, had a choice in the matter! Anyway- if you could let us know how the square space site worked and if you have any suggestions on how you would organize it differently, I would appreciate it and so would other people who are trying to do this- because we exist and we are doing this regardless of what people say :) THANK YOU!!!!
  • I would really love an update on how this went, please! I'm pretty much in the same boat as you were and all the comments I read online about this sort of thing are negative. I feel like people don't actually understand the situation and it's so nice when I read that some couples have pulled this off- it took some coordination, but it wasn't a big deal for the guests, who understood that they would just need to pay for a hotel no matter what, and yes, had a choice in the matter! Anyway- if you could let us know how the square space site worked and if you have any suggestions on how you would organize it differently, I would appreciate it and so would other people who are trying to do this- because we exist and we are doing this regardless of what people say :) THANK YOU!!!!

    1.  This post is a year old.  The OP is long gone.
    2.  Select a variety of hotel options for your guests and let them be adults and choose their own accommodations.
    3.  This is an ETIQUETTE board.  Comments here will not support poor hosting or rude ideas.  If, as you say, you intend to to this regardless of what people say, than go forth.  You will get neither validation or assistance on how to be a poor host.
    4.  Check dates on these posts before commenting.  This is a dead thread.

    Any moderators that can close this please?
  • cchaaggy said:
    I would really love an update on how this went, please! I'm pretty much in the same boat as you were and all the comments I read online about this sort of thing are negative. I feel like people don't actually understand the situation and it's so nice when I read that some couples have pulled this off- it took some coordination, but it wasn't a big deal for the guests, who understood that they would just need to pay for a hotel no matter what, and yes, had a choice in the matter! Anyway- if you could let us know how the square space site worked and if you have any suggestions on how you would organize it differently, I would appreciate it and so would other people who are trying to do this- because we exist and we are doing this regardless of what people say :) THANK YOU!!!!
    Hi there!! I would also love an update - I'm not sure why the response from MobKaz was so negative. We've obviously commented on this thread because there is none other of the like!

    My fiance and I are planning on doing the same thing as there is a bed & breakfast only 2km from our wedding venue in a small town in Tuscany, Italy (both venues owned by the same family). 

    My initial thought was surely there is a website that can do this for us! But after some research, it seems we may be doing the admin ourselves. I've set up websites before so I don't think this would be too difficult but would absolutely love to know if it works and if there were any ways to improve the process. 

    Were you able to do this for your guests @cchaaggy?

    Thanks for your advice!!
    Monique
  • cchaaggy said:
    I would really love an update on how this went, please! I'm pretty much in the same boat as you were and all the comments I read online about this sort of thing are negative. I feel like people don't actually understand the situation and it's so nice when I read that some couples have pulled this off- it took some coordination, but it wasn't a big deal for the guests, who understood that they would just need to pay for a hotel no matter what, and yes, had a choice in the matter! Anyway- if you could let us know how the square space site worked and if you have any suggestions on how you would organize it differently, I would appreciate it and so would other people who are trying to do this- because we exist and we are doing this regardless of what people say :) THANK YOU!!!!
    Hi there!! I would also love an update - I'm not sure why the response from MobKaz was so negative. We've obviously commented on this thread because there is none other of the like!

    My fiance and I are planning on doing the same thing as there is a bed & breakfast only 2km from our wedding venue in a small town in Tuscany, Italy (both venues owned by the same family). 

    My initial thought was surely there is a website that can do this for us! But after some research, it seems we may be doing the admin ourselves. I've set up websites before so I don't think this would be too difficult but would absolutely love to know if it works and if there were any ways to improve the process. 

    Were you able to do this for your guests @cchaaggy?

    Thanks for your advice!!
    Monique

    The OP has not been active in close to 2 YEARS.  There will be NO update from her.  Chaggy has not been active since July.  Doubtful they are returning.

    If almost all the comments are negative, it is typically because the idea is a bad/poor idea or poor etiquette.  Just because "a few folks" pulled it off does not mean it is a good idea.
    " I would appreciate it and so would other people who are trying to do this- because we exist and we are doing this regardless of what people say".  The boards on the Knot are not here to validate bad ideas or poor hospitality. 
    My response was not negative.  This IS a dead thread which is why no one is responding.  There is no other thread like it because most brides know the difference between proper and poor hospitality.
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