Hotel For Out of Town Guests

I would start your research and begin comparing prices now. Once you find the hotel that will work best, book it! You don't want to be scrambling last minute.

I would do it now. I booked my rooms in October. I went on the website and booked it myself using their online rate which made rooms to be $70 a night. If i had did it through the sales office where they do wedding blocks and your room is free for the wedding night rooms would have been almost double. I can handle paying my own room especially if it means everyone else is getting such a great deal

We are doing it...I think its a very nice thing to do people really appreciate it. Less hassle for them to just reserve a room at the specific hotel.

I would start researching the hotels in your area of the venue. Talk to each hotel and see what type of room discounts they can do. Most are very happy to talk to you and offer you something.

The hotel we got is a courtyard marriott and they only wanted to do blocks of 15 at a time...but have increased it a couple times to keep rooms open for our guests. We just stay in contact to see how many are left and see if we need to add some more rooms. As long as they have the space they will keep increases the block until a certain day that was pre-determined.

And definitely don't settle...you have some time to do the leg work so she what is out there. Good luck!

Hoteplanner.com does quotes for group bookings for free

Our wedding is at a hotel so yes, we blocked rooms with them.

I did block rooms, and am thankful I did. However, it is annoying me that some of my OOT guests (certain family members) will not be staying there due to personal preferences such as it is a non-smoking hotel, but WHATEVER.... i did my part. Sorry for the rant.

Lol lindy!

I want to do this too... but my OOT guest are all coming at different times. I just don't now who's coming when and for how long. Most of my family is from NY and they've never really been to CA, especially LA. So, some want to stay and have vacation and others need to show up only for the wedding and get right back to work on Monday. Some are coming early instead and leaving on the Sunday... Others just aren't sure yet. How did you ladies handle this? Did you try to guess the number of rooms you'd need for each night? Gah. This is one of the few things that are overwhelming me.....

I called last summer for ours and they said call back in November for our new rates.. they wouldn't let me get 2011 rates for this year... bahh humbug

So I blocked ours out back in November.... I would call now and see if you can get this years rates, if not then you might have to wait like I did.

Good luck!

I have a question. I called one place about blocking some rooms and they said it's required to block at least 10rooms. Unfortunately, a lot of my family will not be staying at a hotel (we all stay at an aunts/uncles/cousins place), but I don't know how many of my FH's family is planning on coming from out of town--a lot are from out of town, but they don't seem to be into family functions so I'm so confused what I should do. Should I just say I want to block 10rooms even if I don't think they'll all be booked that way the guests will have the option?

Our guests are coming at all different times too. We just started with 10 rooms each at two hotels for Friday and Saturday night and we'll add more if needed. If guests want to extend their stay for Thursday or Sunday, one of the hotels will give them the block rate as a courtesy but the other will not.

I would call early and just ask. Another thing is, hotel staff can tell you if there's some major convention or something going on. We were initially looking at May 2012 for our wedding. We were already considering April b/c a lot of venues were booked anyway. But when I started researching hotels, I found out there was UN Summit in Chicago the weekend we were considering in May. If we had booked everything else first, we would have been SOL, b/c nobody would have been able to fly in/out of town or get a hotel room anywhere.

Kelly it depends on the hotel - do you have to sign any guarantee that the rooms will be booked, or pay for them if they go unused?

I mean, I wouldn't block 10 rooms if you think only 1 or 2 will get booked at most. But one of my hotels releases the rooms 3 weeks before our wedding if they haven't been booked yet and we don't have to pay anything. So in that case, it can't hurt.

FWIW - it's worth trying to negotiate if they ask you to guarantee or pay for the rooms. Our initial contract with JW Marriott said we had to guarantee/pay for ten rooms. I asked them to remove that sentence before signing. They did.

We blocked hotel rooms for our guests. We have family coming from out of state that will need the rooms and then we figured people could have the option of staying at a hotel instead of driving home if they preferred since our venue is about 45 minutes from most of our guests. I did our hotel block last week actually. I didn't know how blocking rooms really worked or if different hotels did it differently, but my main concern was what would happen if I blocked say 20 rooms but only 10 of them ended up getting reserved. I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to be charged for the rooms that weren't used. She was really helpful and said that we could block as many as we felt we needed and that a month before the wedding which ever rooms were not booked were just released from the block and made available to the hotel again. Just thought that might be a question worth asking when you do pick the hotel.

Eric and Rachelle,

When should you block rooms? As early as possible. If you have your dates, then block hotel rooms as quickly as you can. Depending on the dates, the hotels in your desired location may sell out so it's better to book early.

How to get the best deal possible? Start early (as mentioned already), and get as many quotes as possible. It's easy to do so online. You can our website http://GroupTravel.org to get group hotel rates.

The most important things you should look for are free WiFi, free breakfast, and free shuttle to and from airport (and potentially the reception/ceremony site). Guests will save a bundle of money if you can get those for them. Most 2-3 star hotels like Best Western, Hampton, Homewood suites, Hilton Garden Inn's offer all three mentioned.

Also, consider asking the hotels for a courtesy room block. Cant post more so here is link http://ow.ly/9IEfa

I have a question?? Where getting married at a resort and were having the reception there. Where staying at the hotel and so are family members. I ordered save the date cards. Do I some how let the out of townees know I blocked rooms at the resort for them to be able to stay there at a discounted price..I guess my question is how to let them know.

You would tell them in your invitations.

A lot of that will happen before you send your invites though, by word of mouth - especially among family. Any of our guests who had to travel an exceptional distance new well in advance that there were hotel rooms waiting for them just from me telling them. If everyone on your guest list will need to travel to your wedding, I would start spreading the word now. You don't have to give them details - just let them know you have something lined out.