Hotel Block Problems

The reason I chose that place for our reception was it would hold all of our guests. Which we are inviting 250 people and we are having our wedding where the majority of our guests are OOT. They told me I could call their two sister hotels which are two miles away and see if they would let me set up a block. There are two hotels right accross the street and my mom thinks I should see if they would let me set up a block there. I'm a little upset and concerned because the whole reason I wanted to have the reception at a hotel was because so people who would drink wouldn't have to drive. I told my new sales rep that I wanted ANY rooms that came up added to my block (which she didn't seem overly concerned and gave no promises). I haven't been able to call any hotels yet because with the holiday weekend no sales managers are in yet and I'm still not sure what to do.

Unless you committed to actually paying for more than 40 rooms, it's a bit unreasonable to ask a hotel to block out that much space from their inventory this far out. You are probably not the only bride at that venue for that weekend...and if it's in an area that is popular for tourists there may be others who have already booked vacation time there.

My daughter's venue warned us up front that their hotel rooms book FAR out. They offer their brides blocks of 10 rooms only, and as the block fills they will replenish only up to three rooms at a time for fairness to all (they have three wedding venues spread out across their property, so the possibility of nine weddings over a single weekend). That's a lot of guests to accommodate.

The day we signed the venue contract I reserved rooms for the entire bridal party and both me and the mother of the groom started contacting closest family to provide reservation details so they could book rooms on-site. We also set up a block at a hotel about 10 miles away and will run a shuttle.

We are now 11 months out. The on-site hotel is nearly booked....daughter's wedding accounts for almost 30-35 rooms.

I don't think it's a big deal if some guests will end up right across the street. I'm assuming that means walking distance? So, people will still be able to drink if they choose to and not drive to the venue. 40 rooms is a lot. We have a lot of out of town guests and we had a 10 room courtesy block...and when it would get full we would request 10 more to be open. It's during tourist season in South Florida, and we knew there would be a time where they would say there were no more rooms available. I think it capped out at 40 for us. People waited to book so they will have to book at or backup hotel or figure out another hotel or Air bnb . It's challenging to guarantee a hotel room at 1 hotel for every single guest at large weddings.

The other hotels are right across the street I'm planning on calling them tomorrow. I'm kind of surprised a lot of hotels set room blocks of 10. We are getting married in Rapid City SD there are a lot of hotels and the part we are getting married at isn't even right next to a lot of tourist locations. There are a lot of touristy spots but we aren't real closed to any of them.

At my first venue we had multiple issues with our block. They were showing expired and it turns out no one released them so my guests could book them. So they never showed book but the block showed unavailable.

Definitely call the other hotels and see if they can assist.