Block of rooms?

I would suggest blocking them as soon as you know you’re going with that venue and date - just to avoid any other events that fill up the hotels. Usually the hotels will recommend a number and then you can add to that if more people start booking than planned. Hotels give you a deadline that you can book so once that deadline comes they will just put those rooms your guests don’t book back on the market so no penalty.

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Oh thank goodness!

Talk to the hotel you’re interested in about that. Some hotels will charge you if not all the rooms are filled. I was a corporate events planner and the biggest mistake I ever made at my job was not realizing that they’d charge us if the rooms didn’t get filled. Yikes! Luckily we sorted it out but it was a HUGE headache. So definitely make sure to ask, and I wouldn’t make a room block unless they guarantee you won’t be charged no matter how many of the rooms get filled. Most hotels have a certain number (usually it’s either 10 or 20) that they’ll block for you for free and not charge you if they don’t fill. Just make sure to ask and confirm in writing that you won’t be charged no matter what!

View Quoted Comment Thank you!!! This is my biggest fear, I just read that it could be a percentage of the total rooms that aren’t booked 🙃

This will vary greatly by the hotel but I would start calling hotels near your venue and asking them if they do a courtesy block. For a courtesy block they’ll give you a set number of rooms to start with and your guests will have a date to book by before they are released to the public. But not all hotels offer a courtesy block and you don’t want to sign a contract where you’re held financially liable for unbooked rooms.

View Quoted Comment Yeah most of the hotels I’ve worked with, the rule is something like “if you don’t book at least 80% of the rooms in your block, you’ll be charged the full room rate of all remaining rooms.”


But also most hotels have a certain number of rooms you can block with no risk like that. Just ask what is the maximum number of rooms you can block without being charged for any that don’t get booked.

View Quoted Comment Thank you! I’ll call tomorrow. My venue has preferred hotels so I’ll start by calling those.

View Quoted Comment Yeah my first concern was I’d get charged if they didn’t all get booked😂. Fortunately we called ahead of time because the town our wedding is in has an event that weekend so they were filling up super quick.

You won’t be liable for any rooms if you do a courtesy block, whatever you do not sign anything regarding rooms because you be liable for the rooms that aren’t picked up. All hotels does a courtesy block unless it’s a motel 6 or something like that. The sooner you block the rooms the better it is for you because the rate of the rooms will depend on the time of year, what events are being held, if it’s a holiday etc. when you do the courtesy block they will give you date that the rooms will be released to the general public and whatever rooms aren’t picked up will be released. If there are late bookers depending on the occupancy of the hotel they will still extend the rate to your guests. They won’t tell you this unless you ask. And also, if you happen to see the hotel offering a cheaper rate than what they originally quoted you they will match the cheaper rate, and again they won’t honor it unless you say something

You should block rooms as soon as possible if thats what you are going to offer your guests. usually if the block of rooms are not completely booked by a certain agreed upon date, you will have to pay the hotel a certain $ amount or percentage of the cost which would have been discussed with you prior to the block agreement taking place.

I had a semi-destination wedding (1/2 our guests were coming from a 2-hour drove and the other 1/2 were coming from the Midwest/east coast). We knew we would be able to fill our rooms due to all our guests being from out of town so we signed a room block that required we fill up 90% of the block (35 rooms). We ended up going over our block and had 42 rooms total (about half the boutique resort).


If you know you’ll be able to fill up those rooms, I recommend signing a contract. We were able to get quite a bit of free concessions such as very steep discount, free rounds of golf, priority/early check-ins for guests, etc.

View Quoted Comment A majority of our guests are traveling, we’re getting married about 4 hours from our home town. We also have a good portion of guests that are traveling from other states and countries... so we might be able to fill them. I’m just also worried people might want to go the air bnb route.

View Quoted Comment Then do a courtesy block, with a courtesy block you aren’t liable for any rooms that aren’t picked up.

There are different rules at every hotel, but I would recommend doing a courtesy block. We did this and then we weren't liable for any unused rooms. The courtesy block started at 15 rooms, and when those filled, they simply added in 10 more rooms to our block. And when the 10 additional rooms filled up, they added in 10 more to the block again. I think we ended up with around 30 rooms booked in the end, and we weren't charged a penny for unused rooms. Whatever you do, make sure to get all the info in writing from the hotel to cover your bases.

Thank you! I sure will. I called one hotel today and the special events manager was out. Not surprised. I'll call a couple more

View Quoted Comment Ahhh, okay! Totally understandable to be unsure if you’ll be able To fill them. My husband and I had the same concerns. However, we offered shuttle transportation from the hotel to the venue as well as threw our afterparty at the hotel’s restaurant lounge. This helped entice our guests to staying there.


There was an actual wedding at the hotel the same day as us (we had our wedding at a different venue) so about 6 weeks before our wedding, it was completely booked so some of my guests were unable to get rooms so they had to stay at another hotel. However, whenever rooms would open up, they would tell us in case we had a guest that needed one and would allow us to keep our rate. Most of our guests were staying 2-3 days so I think that (as well as throwing the afterparty) pushed them to prioritize our wedding over the other.
We booked our room block around May for our February wedding. Like one of the PPs above, we first started with 10 rooms (courtesy was 9 rooms) and when those filled up, we added 25 more. We didn’t add any additional ones to that because our hotel was super accommodating. We had some guests that booked through a third party site, and we were still able to add them to our room block. Most wont do this, but our hotel was super accommodating and flexible.
Definitely get ALL the details from the hotel and in writing because I’ve heard about a few brides that got screwed out of thousands of dollars because of not filling their hotel block.

View Quoted Comment I did not know some hotels did this 😅we are getting married in a smaller town so could be why.