Blocking hotel rooms

Following...we are looking at this now. We are thinking one hotel based on the amount of guests we know need rooms. I think it's all based on your guest count. We are trying to keep everyone in one place because it seems like it will be more fun. Distance wise we don't have a lot of options so we are going with the nicest hotel that's closest - 23 min from the venue.

We booked our wedding block in December, but I'm not sure how far in advance you should do it. Typically, you look at distance and also price ranges. Depending on where the wedding is, you want to offer your guests a choice as far as pricey and affordable. I also looked at things close by the hotel like Walmart and restaurants. Then I also looked at the accommodations of the hotels such as parking and free breakfast. I'm having 50 guests so we booked 20 rooms. I think you decide on how many rooms based on how many guests will be coming from out of town. The hotel may be able to help you with deciding how many rooms as well. Some hotels also have a max amount of rooms they will block with you being penalized if no one books. That's also something to take into consideration. I hope this helps. Happy planning

Start negotiations as soon as possible...

I looked for lowest retail prices with good reviews...

I ended up blocking two hotels, but only because they are owned by the same parent company...

Only you can say how many rooms you need....

Do not accept a block that makes you pay for unused rooms! I negotiated an open block and let everyone know that if they do not book by X date, they will lose out on the discount.

Negotiate a rate block that includes a 3+/- on the dates for those who want to come in longer.

We only booked one hotel, all of the hotels in our area only do "guaranteed blocks" (I think that is the correct term). Which means me had to pay a deposit and we are responsible for any unreserved rooms. So make sure that the hotel/s your are booking do a courtesy room block, I have read people in here do several courtesy blocks in hotels with different price ranges, unless you prefer to have everyone in the same place. We made our room block about 10 months out since it is a very popular area.

We did ours over a year out and were shocked to find that a lot of hotels were already sold out. However, our wedding is the weekend after July 4th so that could be part of it.

The advice I got was to reserve a couple of courtesy blocks at two different price points. I used WW Hotel Planner and the process was pretty easy and I got offered great rates!

I just reserved our block. I chose a hotel between downtown and our venue and made sure there was plenty to do within walking distance. It was one of the only hotels in that area that did an open block with no cost from us. We had one that said they had an open block but required a $500 deposit in case there was any damages! The way the hotel we chose does their blocks was you have 5 rooms always available.

We used JC Room Blocks for ours about 7 months before the wedding. They contacted all the hotels, negotiated for us, and put together an easy list of pros and cons for each hotel (with prices) for us to choose from. They even asked whether the hotel charged to hand out welcome bags, which is something we didn't think of! Once we weekend a few months out, they sent us a weekly list of who reserved a room so we could monitor the block and remind those we knew needed rooms to call when we got close to the deadline. They also automatically added more rooms when our initials block filled, which was awesome!

It seems like a simple thing to hire a company to do for you, but they were so incredibly helpful, especially when it came to crunch time right before the wedding. Over half our guest list was OOT, so lots of people needed rooms!

I called the hotel for a room block within a week of securing our venue, as one hotel is very close to our venue (maybe a mile away) and the next closest are more a 10 minute drive. We also booked the conference room at the hotel for the weekend, so our guests will have somewhere to hang out that isn't their rooms. My brother and SIL did this for their wedding and put a bunch of snacks, sodas, beer etc. in there for guests to have while they weren't busy with wedding stuff.

We already blocked our hotel rooms back in June. I'm not sure how early our guests can start booking. I have to speak to the coordinator at the hotel to find that out. Also, the hotel is right down the street from our reception hall, and we have a deal with the hotel to use their shuttle for those guests who will be staying at the hotel. We decided to go this route because it will allow our guests to actually enjoy themselves without worrying about how they will be getting home. Good luck on your planning! And congrats!

Did mine in January.

I've had mine blocked since February. We have 30 rooms blocked for my guest.

We booked ours as soon as we set the date which was about 10 months out

I blocked ours in may, because I wanted all the info on our wedding website when our save the dates went out in July. I blocked rooms at the hotel that's opening a 5 minute walk from our venues. I figured if they'd prefer to stay at the beach (20 minutes away) they could figure that out on their own, this made the most sense.

Our wedding is 03/18 and I arranged our blocks a couple of months ago. It's hockey season, so rooms book fast in NoDak and we have majority OOT guests.

We booked blocked our rooms in June..we blocked it so early because it's around college graduation and high school prom.I made sure to get a hotel block that didnt charge is any of the rooms didn't book

I just started booking hotels a few weeks ago. I have blocks at 2 so far, 1 could only block a maximum of 15 rooms and the other's max block was for 10, but they will add more if the blocks fills up. I am thinking of making at least 10 blocks at just 1 more hotel as we do potentially have a lot of OOT guests and I just wanted to give them options. I had to split them based on the maximums these hotels offered and I tried to find hotels within a 10-15 minute driving distance from our venue. Unfortunately, there really isn't anything closer to our venue otherwise I would be booking with them.

I booked mine this past June.

@MrsSki - Do you mind me asking how much a service like that costs? Because that sounds amazing!