Blocking rooms - HELP!

I blocked two hotels one cheaper and one more expensive. Ten rooms at each hotel. Once one hotel was almost full I was able to add more blocks.

Our venue was a hotel and our guest list was not as large as yours. We started out with 10 rooms blocked and then when the rooms started filling up quickly, we added 5 more. We had a total of 14 rooms reserved by our guests.

You have to breakdown your guest list and see how many are couples, families that would be staying at the hotel, and any singles and determine how many rooms you think you would need to block. If one hotel cannot accommodate all of them, then you would need to book a second hotel.

Also, when reserving room blocks, check with the hotel to make sure you are not responsible financially for any unbooked rooms in the block. For example, if you blocked 10 rooms and only 8 were reserved, you would be responsible to still pay for the 2 rooms that were not booked. Some hotels are like that. Most will allow you to reserve the block and on a certain date (usually 1 month prior), the unreserved rooms are released so that the public can book them.

I just blocked 10, anymore then that then I would have had to sign an agreement contract. Contact the hotel(s) and ask thier policy.

Expect 1 room per PAIR of guests, which means you'd potentially need 60-70 rooms... however, most hotel contracts stipulate that you have to pay a fee towards any blocked rooms that go un-booked, which can add up to huge penalties. We have 120 invited, but we know 15 won't come for sure. So that means 105, or around 52 rooms. However, some of those guests are local enough to drive home, or have small children so we assume they will, which means we predict needing around 40 rooms. We booked 20 to start - the hotel manager recommended that number, based on the figures we gave her. She said that it's risky to book too many, because of the 50% fee we get charged if they don't sell the rooms to our guests.

I'm thinking of upping that to 30, though, b/c this is the only truly good hotel in the area, and I'm fearful of people getting blocked out due to graduations and other events that also happen in June.

Talk to the group sales coordinator at the hotels you're considering - they do this a lot, and will be able to help you figure it out. It's to their benefit to have the rooms sold, so they're not incentivized to mislead you!

We blocked off rooms at one hotel. I blocked off 15 for the wedding night and it was a couple short. I suggest discussing what the cancellation policies are. Go with a hotel that allows you to book as many rooms as you want, but a couple days before the wedding they release the ones that did not get booked to the public. That way you can book a crap ton of rooms (just to be safe) and not have to worry about paying for them

Our event is a DW as everyone is OOT. We did a room block of 10 rooms (we still have some in the block (that I will be released at the end of this month)...but we did end up booking almost their whole main property... Roughly 68 bedrooms the night of the wedding, 62 the Friday, 28 the Thursday...that was for roughly 184 rsvped so far guests.

Our hotel would only block 20 rooms at a time. So they blocked 20. If 20 filled, they'd block another 20 - and so on, until the cut off date. We didn't book 20 rooms so we didn't have to do that, but just an example of what some do.

Definitely find hotels with no attrition clause (you pay for unbooked rooms). If you can find a hotel that offers a shuttle or has a bar for an after party, BONUS!

Thanks for all of the input! I'm gonna call around and make sure we find ones that we won't be stuck paying for the left over rooms

I havent bloced rooms yet but... my wedding planner said to do a "soft block" which is basically where you block a certian # of rooms and then right before, they open them to the public if they arent booked. that way you are not on the hook for any unused rooms

I blocked rooms at 2 hotels. One will hold 10 rooms and will block off more once those are full but if they aren't booked 30 days before our wedding, they release the rooms. The other hotel is a partner of the museum we're getting married at. They gave us a letter that will give people 20% off their best rate.

We only blocked at 1 hotel since we were wanting to provide a shuttle between the hotel and venue so no one drinks and drives. We have about 90 people coming to our wedding. We started with blocking 20 rooms, knowing we had to fill at least 80% or we would get charged. Then every month or so I would call the hotel to check on the block. If the rooms were running low, I'd add a few. For the 2 months I was just adding enough rooms to that I already had enough booked to cover 80% so I knew I wouldn't have to pay.

I think in the end 35 rooms got booked. Our shuttle got over-booked though with a whopping 63 people wanting to take that so now we have to find a second shuttle since our vendor doesn't have any more shuttle available. We planned on a 50 person capacity.

We are in a similar situation with the number of OOT guests. We are inviting about 160-170 and expect 120-130 to show up, the majority of them being not just from out of town, but out of state. We currently have blocks of 15 rooms set up at two different hotels. They are both very flexible and if they fill up all the rooms, they will add more rooms to the block as long as there is still room at the hotel. The only stipulation is that guests need to reserve their rooms 1 month prior to our wedding to get the discounted rate and any unused rooms get released back into inventory.

The hotels in my area only let me block ten at a time. Otherwise I am held liable for the rooms that don't get book.

I blocked 10 rooms at a Hampton inn near me. They are generally nice hotels, but they were also the only ones that would let me add on rooms once I got close to the ten being booked without an additional fee.

We have about 30 rooms that will need to be booked. It's a bit of a gamble, but I made sure the hotel I chose had a TON of rooms. I call every few days or so to make sure I don't need to add rooms yet.

I booked at one hotel with a guest count of 150 guests. Half of that was FH's family, which majority are from out of town, with the rest being my local family and friends. I blocked 15 rooms the night of the wedding and the day I was supposed to call and release the block I found out a couple people hadn't booked yet but the block was full. Luckily, my coordinator at the hotel was awesome and added a couple rooms PLUS extended the deadline!

We had 2 hotels, about the same price. Downtown Pittsburgh rates on Steelers weekend don't budge. We had 10/hotel Friday and 15/ hotel Saturday without any issues. We were about 15 rooms over total, guest list of about 230, including in-town guests, folks who could travel, etc.