Destination Wedding Venue/resort Serious Issue

Hi Vanessa!
I personally looked at travel agencies and some destination wedding agencies to get the best price and I didn’t. All the prices were higher but included transportation. This made me nervous because if someone went straight to the hotel or thru a site like Expedia for booking they’ll get a better rate. For this reason I cross them all out. My hotel itself had an agency that takes care of that and gave me a fix price. I got 10% off the price they had online when I signed the contract and this happened during a spring sale so when guest booked there was a fix price not a 10% of the current price.
The contract itself was a nightmare because you need a minimum of 15 rooms in order to get a rate discount. I had less than 50 guest at the end so it was a small wedding. If you have a much bigger party I highly recommend it because they do save money and is helpful for them.
So I think you should first go thru the hotel and see their prices. If you’re having the wedding there they might give you room block without contract and even a discount for all your guest. I did not have my wedding at the hotel so I won’t know how that works.
If not see how many guest you plan to have and send them all a message (I did this multiple times) send them price per person or per night with totals and minimum night requires if any and create a list of yes and maybes and go from there. If you have a large list for yes then you might be better getting the discount rate from the hotel with a contract of 15 rooms. There’s always some that would fleek in the end so count couples or family per room and always have extra. If your count of yes is 15 rooms then don’t do it!
I also recommend a plan b for guest that you can add later on. I had 3 couples that we invited last minute and they were life savers in the end!
Good luck! I hope this is clear enough. Room block and discount rate contracts can be a little confusing at times.

View Quoted Comment Hi Vanessa. Did you talked to a TA ? I’m getting married in Cabo April 2020. She was able to get better prices for my guest... I had to give a deposit and select rooms but as my friends book I’m able to drop rooms that i know won’t be taken ( but prices were better then websites)

View Quoted Comment I’ve talked to two TAs now and both were higher than the hotels online advertised price and also higher than the hotels group rate. I haven’t been able to talk to anyone from the hotel again either, their quote was still more than their online price, though not as much more as the TAs. Super frustrating!!

I used a travel agent that specializes in destination weddings to book our DW to Turks & Caicos and highly recommend, only because they have knowledge about what is standard in contracts and how hotels try to scoot around things like price variances, etc. She gets paid by resorts and by airlines for promoting their services, so there's no incentive for her to jack up our rates. Our agent masterfully negotiated our contract. Also to note is that transportation and reliable transportation for your guests is huge and worth the money if it's included. Transport, especially in foreign countries with a different language, can be confusing and difficult to negotiate for a traveler not familiar with typical practices (case in point, have you ever flown into Cancun airport? OMG, you get approached by 14 people offering to drive you somewhere or sell you a timeshare). I would say you're paying for expertise and to prevent you from having to intervene in guest issues - for example, our agent has said that if our guests book through her, she will assist with any travel woes which is the last thing I would want to do if I were there to get married. :-D

View Quoted Comment That does sound frustrating!!! My TA works with destination weddings. And she is the one that put me in contact with the hotel. The ones that you contacted do destination weddings?

Are you calling the hotel to get prices or just sending emails? I find that they take forever to reply to emails so when I want a quick response I usually call.

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Yep, both specialized in DW. I'm mostly emailing, but I'm going to start calling now.

View Quoted Comment Yes you should call.Good luck!! Hope you get answers.

I initially was just going to let my guest do their own booking on whatever site they wanted but what I found appeals about the TA is that they were able to do payments towards the reservations. (But only because prices were better too!)

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Thanks Rosa. I finally spoke to the hotel rep and am happy with what they are offering. They matched their current online rates and shes also matching the cancellation policy. I'm also not doing a room block and just locking in the rate--ppl will still need to hurry and book or they might sell out of the kinds of rooms they want, but at least this way I'm not on the hook for whats not sold--which really freaked me out! She did however state that IF in the event something like Expedia starts selling rooms at half the price, she can't renegotiate. But i figured its fine since its fully refundable for guests up to 15 days before the wedding. Getting this all in writing of course, keeping my fingers crossed it works this way in reality!

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Thank you so much! I asked the hotel rep about a plan b, since what we're doing isnt a blocking off rooms so they could sell out still, and she said that if she sees that its getting late and people havent booked and the hotel is getting full she'll let me know so i can decide if i want to at that point block rooms off...hoping i dont have to do that, but its nice that they will honor the rate we're signing at now if in the future I want a block. The rate im locking in at is the current sale rate...which i find fair so thats ok.

View Quoted Comment That’s awesome!