Do you HAVE TO book hotels for guests?

It's not a requirement. However, if you have VIPs that are a little less fortunate, if you have the funds, you can cover their travel and accommodation. I had to do this for a few people.

Girl no! If you block them off they will give the guests a discount now

Absolutely not! It would be nice for you to set up a hotel block for the wedding that way your guests have easy means to book a room and sometimes for cheaper...but then the guests book and pay for those.

Omg no!! We just made a hotel block

What? Ive never heard that. Must be an old rule.

We just set up a block at a hotel and guests book & pay for themselves

Oh no! We got a block of rooms for our out of towners at a discounted rate.

I don't think so. You can block out rooms for you out of town guests, but I don't think it's required.

We are not. We only have about 10 oot guests and a block is not worth it for us. There are plenty of under 100 hotels in the area and most will stay with other family, anyways.

We were invited to our nephew's wedding in the West of England in August 2016 (700 miles away from our home in Germany).

After enquiring of the MoG in late 2015 several times about accommodation - and being ignored just as many times - we discovered that the couple had made a block booking of the official hotel in/by January 2016 for their colleagues and buddies (this was later conformed to us by the hotel director) . But once these were sorted out, the blocks was released and it become a (belated) free-for-all booking scramble in the case of family members. (The invitations, which went out in February, recommended the said hotel, but the hectoring tone – this to folks that the bride had never met — says it all: “don’t leave it too late as the rooms will get booked up quickly”. We booked a nearby hotel in late January in exasperation, as the heavy tourist booking season was looming. But it was an absolute disaster, and we ended up with lack of sleep (owing to nightly fox/chicken fights outside our room) upset stomachs and insults from the proprietor, and missed the wedding as a result... (Not that we nor any other aunts/uncles - all staying at scattered locations - were invited to the eve-of-wedding banquet, in the official hotel(!) for 16 elite guests)...

I have always believed that if family members are invited, it is de facto a family occasion, with aunts, uncles and other extended family members that get to meet up only every few years given the opportunity of socializing (at our age - late60s/mid 70s - heaven alone knows whether it might be the last such occasion) and they take absolute priority over the couple’s friends, colleagues and buddies – who meet up far more frequently. (That the bride secured accommodation in the official hotel for some of her friends at short notice merely exacerbates the general tenor of discrimination). Etiquette provides the answer; invite family, on the one hand, and colleagues/friends/buddies, on the other, to separate engagement and/or wedding functions, but if this is not possible, then – repeat– family members come first!

I have 3 married sisters and while none paid for out of town guests, all reserved a block of rooms. What we did do was make special goodie bags (w water, salty snack, chocolate and a trinket from the destination--we did a Maine magnet for one sisters wedding as it was in Maine) for each guest that checked in under the block that had been reserved. It was a nice touch and it was great to come back to my room at the end of the night and have some water and a little snack! We also put a little hand written note in each bag too. We had no issues getting the desk staff to hand them out to the guests--we made 3 extra for the front desk staff too. You can get as creative as you want, I think we even did one sisters w a candle in there...Cost us about $40-50 bucks to make them up w supplies, but you could really do anything. We made about 25 to 30 bags I thing if I recall. And we ordered the Maine Magnets and the candles in advance, cheaply, on-line.