Blocking off rooms??

Depends on the hotel and how many guests you are inviting.

I blocked 50 rooms at a hotel 2 blocks from my reception venue. I have invited 190 guests, haven't sent out invitations yet so won't know the actual count for a while. And 75% of our guests are traveling which is why I needed a lot of rooms. Rooms that are not booked by the deadline will be "released" so they can be booked by other people. My deadline is a month in advance because there is a big music festival happening the same weekend as my wedding.

We have 20 rooms blocked off at the venue (which is also a hotel). People call and book under mine or FH's name, and they get a discounted rate. They start releasing the rooms to the general public one or two weeks before the wedding date. So if at the last minute guests still want to book, they can, but wouldn't get the discounted rate. We definitely don't get charged for unused rooms.

You are not responsible for paying for them, no. And no hotel should ever ask you to pay any percentage of rooms left over, either. Gauge the number of rooms you need based on families coming in from out of town.

All hotels have different policies and procedures. You will have to call and find out. Just give them the info and they will guide you as to how many rooms, etc.

Some hotels do have attrition policies (you pay for blocked but unused rooms). But don't book with one that does unless it is totally unavoidable (unlikely).

Call the hotel(s) you are interested in and ask how they do it. You probably don't need to know how many rooms. Ours just blocked 20. If 20 filled, they'd block 20 more. Rooms were released about a month before the wedding. It shouldn't cost you anything to book. Some hotels will even provide a shuttle if you book enough rooms.

I have a block of 10 rooms. If the guests don't book by a certain date (I think it's a week before the wedding), it's not big deal. The hotel will just release the rooms, and I'm not responsible for paying for them,

I blocked off rooms at a Fairfield (small town not too many options) and they said you are not responsible for rooms that do not get booked. They will ask for your credit card to authorize in order to hold the room but guests pay when they get there.

Our wedding coordinator recommended offering 3 different hotels in three different prices for our downtown wedding. I emailed the hotels I was interested in and asked for a COMPLIMENTARY room block. For a total of 25 out of town parties, I have blocked 15 rooms at the Four Seasons which is two blocks from our reception venue ($235 - a GREAT price!), 10 rooms at Magnolia about eight blocks from our reception venue ($159), and 10 rooms at the Curtis which is three blocks from our reception ($129). For downtown Denver, these rates are fantastic. These rooms will all be released about a month prior to the wedding. Otherwise we will point people to hotels.com.

There are some hotels that WILL charge you if you don't fill up the rooms you have blocked – you have to make sure you know what the terms of the block are. Each hotel is different; give the ones you're considering a call and see what their policies are.

Yes, just call around and shop around for rates and make sure you're not booking at a hotel that will charge you for unused rooms. Most don't anymore, but you should ask to be sure. Other questions to ask are regarding when they will release unused rooms, will they let you add rooms later if you need more, whether breakfast is included, things like that. I booked rooms at a Holiday Inn a few blocks from our venue and it was $89/night and they release them about three weeks before the wedding. Guests could still book at the discounted rate after that, but there wouldn't be a guaranteed availability after the release date.

Do you have a rough guest list created? That will help you determine how many households are coming in from out of town and would need hotels. We have 100 households invited and probably about half are out of town, but I only booked 25 for now because my immediate family is renting a house together and most of my extended family probably won't come. Plus, our hotel said we could add rooms later if we fill up early.

Every place is different, but I blocked off 2 10 room blocks, with no fee to us if rooms go unused. Be sure to discuss this with the hotel! I love the room block idea because we get a discounted room if we fulfill our 10 room request, and the guests get perks like free parking and wifi.

Ok thanks ladies. One more question how many days are you revving ye rooms for? The day before and day after or?

I used the room block service from Klienfields and they were super helpful and responsive. I would recommend looking into them. No fees and if you don't like the options, you can always opt out and do it on your own.

We reserved rooms for FRI and SAT evenings (our wedding is on a SAT).

Each hotel is different, but I would never agree to a hotel where I had to pay for rooms that weren't booked!! Our hotel typically offers 20 rooms in a block, but since 80% of our guest list is out of town they let us do 30. They will give us more if we fill up those rooms and we aren't responsible for any rooms not booked. We just blocked rooms on Saturday night. They gave us a mix of king and 2 queen rooms. We also got our room there on the wedding night for free

I blocked 10 rooms at two hotels right near the venue (20 rooms total) for Friday and Saturday night. We are not required to pay for unused rooms - they will just be released if no one uses them.

After my appointment at Kleinfeld I got an email from www.kleinfeldhotelblocks.com they helped me set it up. It was actually very helpful.

Call the hotel. And again, I don't know why anyone would want to add this to your 'to do' list. Adults can book their own rooms.

Its always important to check with the hotel

We blocked rooms 10 at a time, and got a special rate for our guests.

We ended up blocking a total of 20 rooms, and since we did it in increments, we did not have to pay anything for the blocks.

Hotels will be different, but the way it worked for us was: If we blocked the rooms, and we didn't use them all- AND the hotel could not get them booked by the wedding date, then we had to pay 25% of the cost per room.

It's kind of a gamble to be honest. If you know you'll have a lot of OOTers, then I think it's a nice gesture to try to get them the best rates. However, if you don't- I wouldn't add this to your to-do list.

We used Kleinfeld hotel blocks and I'd highly recommend them. They asked for some basic information from us then gathered info from about 20 local hotels and sent us back a spreadsheet with all of the hotels and the contracts they were offering. It showed the rates, the number of rooms we could block, and it showed up which hotels would hold us financially responsible for unbooked rooms in the block vs. hotels that would just release the rooms to the general public. We ended up getting a contract that offered rooms at $109 per night for king suites or double queen rooms, we got a suite for free for the wedding night, a discounted rate for me to stay there the night before, plus a free shuttle from 5pm until midnight to take our guests back and forth.