My partner and I are having our wedding in my small hometown over an hour away from a medium sized college city. Well- it turns out the weekend of our wedding there is a large international event being hosted there. I initially wasn't worried about it, because even though 90% of our guests are traveling, our wedding is on a Sunday and far enough away that we wouldn't be affected...
Wrong.
We have most of the major things for the ceremony and reception planned (venue, caterer, DJ/music, etc.) and started working down our list. Because most of our friends and family are coming from around the country, we wanted to have a couple hotel blocks set aside for them. Again, since it's a small town, there are a couple chain hotel brands of good quality that run about $90 a night. Totally reasonable, especially factoring the other costs like hotels and flights.
The first warning sign came when we called the best hotel option in town and heard- sorry we can't do a block of rooms for that weekend. And then we worked down the list- 30 rooms left, no blocks right now sorry, pay up front and forfeit any vacancies. And the best one: 250+ a night. All because of this event over an hour away.
For some more context, we've had our date and venue set since August but just sent out Save the Dates 2 weeks ago.
TL;DR: I can't make any hotel block reservations for my wedding in June and am torn on whether to let people know that the hotels are selling out, even though the event is in June and folks typically don't start making travel plans until 3 months away (as typical travel wisdom dictates). Or should I not say anything and assume that folks will be able to figure out their own hotel/airbnb arrangements?
((We've already let the wedding party know so there are no issues there. Just with the 80-100 other out of town folks))
