Hotel room blocks

Not all of my guests have viewed the wedding website and I have the hotel block information on there. We put the information on a information card that was included in the wedding invitation package we ordered. It allowed us to put the hotel information and the name the block was under. As for the two weeks, I don't know. My wedding is in ten days and several people still hadn't reserved a block. I had to call the hotel to see who all reserved and then contact those who didn't to politely remind them. It may be a little problematic, but you can always call or send an email to guests.

You can send your invites a little earlier also - went sent ours about 10-11 weeks and had a note that the hotel info was on the website. I made sure our VIP guests like close family and friends booked rooms, but anyone else I didn't follow up. I figured they could handle it or contact me if they had problems.

Maybe you could gently remind those who you might think will need rooms a little earlier than when the invites go out - maybe around the first of next year. I agree that 6 weeks seems pretty early though, but I guess the hotel wants to ensure the maximum amount of occupancy.

Is it a destination wedding? or do you just have a bunch of people from out of town coming?

We are having a destination wedding and will send out our invites 3 months prior so guests have time to book rooms, with a 6 week RSVP deadline. Gives me 2 weeks to confirm everyone that is attending has booked a room before our room block deadline hits.

Following - as I have been wondering the same thing! We have approximately 50 guests that will be traveling 4+ hours and will be needing a room. We thought of just spreading the word to those people now that they can book a room anytime?

One of my two hotels (Radisson) said they'd charge me for the whole block if nobody booked by 8 weeks prior, and for the remaining rooms if some but not all 10 were booked by 4 weeks prior. I cancelled the block yesterday (3 days before the 8 week mark), and only kept a room block with a hotel that doesn't penalize us.

Call around to hotels and ask for a complimentary room block. Some will have a max number of rooms they will hold for free, others will base this off your total expected number of out of town guests. We are offering three hotels in low/mid/high price ranges. Since our reception is downtown, the hotels are all within three blocks of the reception. If someone misses out on booking, they are welcome to book at the same hotel for the higher rate or book at another hotel. We are staying at the Four Seasons and certainly don't expect all of our guests to (but their discount rate is great so they'd be crazy not to)!

I will include our wedding website on our save-the-dates, and put the hotel information there. Everyone is adults, they all use the internet, they can be responsible for their own rooms.

Thanks all! I'll include our wedding website on the STDs and send out invites a bit early. It's not a a DW but we do have a lot of out of town guests.

@Jackie - one thing to keep in mind or ask the hotel is what happens when the rooms fill up. I was surprised that I needed to keep track of the room block fill so that I could add on additional rooms if needed. It's not a automatic thing -even if the guest has the group code.

Are you including a hotel card with your invitations? I put information about the hotel block including the deadline for the block in with the invitation. Even a little something will help so people know there is another deadline besides just the RSVP date. You could even just print slips of paper; it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

@butterflyfinder - thank you so much for that tip! I'll definitely ask when I bring it up tomorrow. I'm hoping there won't be too many events that weekend, but it is Mother's Day, so who knows?

@rebecca - that's a good idea. I wasn't planning on it. We were just going to do really simple invites, but I think I will add one. There's just too much and I don't want to trust people to go on the website for all the info.

My hotel is releasing the rooms about 6 weeks before too. I did put my website on the save the date and the local friends booked their rooms because they knew they would be drinking. I am going to send my invites out a little early because of this and I put on the information card the date the room block is being released.

This is the exact reason I sent my invites at 12-14 weeks out, not 6-8. With so many traveling, I didn't want them to miss out on the room blocks or face ridiculously expensive airfare. Personally, I think the 6-8 week rule is anachronistic, and really doesn't work in world where friends and family don't all live in the same town.

Send the invites a few weeks earlier than usual and also include the hotel info and deadline on your website.

I'm just trying to help you understand from the hotel's point of view as far as the 6 week cut off. The industry norm is cut off at 4 weeks but your wedding is also during a high occupancy period. Releasing the block early could be their way of opening rooms up to the general population for booking. At the hotel I worked for, if you "closed" the hotel for booking (due to the hotel being sold out) with the hotel chain's central reservations center and you don't sell out, the hotel gets a monetary charge for each empty room.

I included our hotel information on our wedding website and verbally told the "VIPs" about the block (think parents, wedding party members and all out of town guests). I also mentioned it in passing to others if it came up but aside from that I wouldn't worry too much about it. People will ask you if they really want to spend the night.

I placed our website on our STD's

Oh, I totally understand the hotels needing to know numbers as far out as possible and I hope people will book early, but I also ready all the horror stories about rsvps, so I'm nervous.

Our wedding is in mid-August. The hotel released our block of rooms on May 1st.

We are having a DW wedding with limited number of guests. I sent save the dates, had the info on the website, but in the beginning of April when I still had rooms left and some guests still have not booked, I just called them to remind them of the release.

I am not paying for empty rooms at 150 a pop.

It's pretty common for rooms to be released a month before. Should all of ours not have been booked they would have been rolled into general bookings yesterday. Same with the discount rate

I included the hotel block info with our STD as well as on our website (which was on the STD lol) and on an accommodations card on our invites. I like the other suggestions of mentioning the deadline and sending invites just a little earlier.