Planning a wedding with majority out-of-town guests

I'm not there, but I will be. So I will be very interested in the answers. My FH's entire family will be traveling to New England from Texas for the wedding.

We also live in the metro Atlanta area but 90% of our guest list is from out of state. When doing hotel blocks, we did enough for most of our 150 person guest list, then after we sent out invitations and started to get RSVP's back we cancelled a block entirely at one hotel once we knew more who was coming and who was staying where.

We also sent out invites to all of our extended family because we figured they wouldn't actually make the trip for the wedding and we planned on having roughly 70 people. Well now with RSVPs due in 2 days, our guest list is up to 93 people with about 10 still not in yet. So as much as you try to predict you won't ever know until you get RSVPs. Sorry if this isn't very helpful--I just feel your pain and it sounds exactly like the stress we have been through!

Hi JFen! I'm getting close to my wedding and went through everything you can imagine with hotel blocks, and it's all really culminating now as people plan their trips, so let me share my experience with you. By the way, we're inviting about 350 (and I sincerely hope many of them don't come)

We started planning about 18 months ago. We got a hotel block at the hotel nearby, 10 rooms Friday night and 20 rooms Saturday night. We told them how pretty much everyone is from out of town (we're getting married at our university where we met, and it's neutral ground). They said, no problem, they will add more rooms as needed. The thing is.... most people wait until they have their invitations to book. The hotel block filled up VERY QUICKLY. And guess what? The entire hotel is sold out. No more rooms available. Less than a tenth of our guests have rooms there. Great...

So now we have a second hotel, and since it's this close to the actual date, they didn't have as many rooms available as we will probably need. Nobody has complained yet, but I know we will hit that point. At some point, you have to realize that Aunt Rita is a big girl who can handle finding a hotel on her own, even if it's not in a hotel block.

So my advice to you would be to snag up lots of rooms for both Friday and Saturday early on. At some point about a month before the wedding, you can release the unused rooms back to the hotel. We had no way to predict that a giant class reunion for a school I've never heard of would be happening the same weekend.

Also, figure out how far before the wedding you'll need a headcount for your vendors. Mine only need 2 weeks, but I'm asking for RSVP responses 4 weeks beforehand. Just make sure you can handle everyone if they do come. My cousin had the same situation (out of town, so many guests), and most of them showed up!

Maybe 65% of our guest list was out of town -- H's entire family, the vast majority of our friends, and about a quarter of my family. My tips:

1. Budget and plan as if your entire guest list will attend. Make sure everyone can fit in your venue and you can afford to pay for them all. You never know.

2. For estimates, just tell your vendors the deal. We said "we're invited XXX, but most are out of town." They knew how to handle it and we gave them final numbers like usual.

3. Hotel blocks--just find one that doesn't make you pay a deposit or be otherwise responsible for any unpaid rooms. Most will give you a set number then increase as needed. And try to be cognizant of where you pick your hotel. Not everyone will want to rent a car, so try to find one with free airport transportation and/or close to restaurants, shops, etc.

4. Don't take it personally if people can't/won't travel. It's not necessarily a reflection of how much they care about you guys, sometimes it really is just too hard. H took a few declines pretty hard and I felt bad for him.

5. If you can arrange "extras" to help out your guests, that's really nice. Not needed, but nice. Like we told all our guests we would be at a bar next to the hotel after our rehearsal dinner. Maybe 50-60 people showed up throughout the night, and it was a great chance to see everyone. We bought a few apps and I think the guests appreciated it. We also picked a hotel that did free transportation if we booked a certain number of rooms. I know our guests definitely appreciated it.

Hope this helps!!

JoBu, thank you so much for the advice on the hotel blocks! So did you reserve blocks at multiple hotels? We were thinking about doing that as well

We probably only invited 20 people who actually live in the same city as us. We just set everything up as if we were to have 100% attendance. Our hotel let us set a block of 20 and said they'd add rooms in sets of ten as those filled. Honestly, just plan for everyone. In the end, we are spending close to $7,000 less than we budgeted for due to declines but I'm really glad to have that cushion. It makes all these last minute things so much easier knowing that we haven't maxed out our budget.

@J_05 you're so welcome! We did do multiple blocks, in various price ranges. We are getting married at Lake Lanier so we have a block of rooms at the resort there, but they are rather pricey. So, we also did a block at a Comfort Inn and Suites and a Holiday Inn. The Holiday Inn is about 5 minutes from our venue while the Comfort Inn and Suites is the cheapest but 15-20 minutes away. We ended up cancelling our remaining rooms at both the Holiday Inn and Comfort because people spread between the both of them and Lake Lanier that we didn't totally fill up one block. I would definitely recommend doing a couple in different price ranges to give guests options, if possible!

It's looking like planning for 100% attendance is most definitely the best option, you guys have given be great suggestions! Thanks so much, especially considering I am nervous when planning dinner parties, this wedding planning has been a huge undertaking!

My entire half of the GL is oot guest. We decided to charter a bus for 50 of my family members. They are the only ppl from my 100 I expect to attend.but bc FH has way more ppl to invite we think we will still have 200. I would make sure the minimum is such that if half rsvp your not forced to pay for 215. As far as hotels usually it 15 rooms. If those fill most hotels will add another 15. You can also block two or three hotels.

Plan on everyone and you'll be very excited when some drop. I had an OOT wedding where I invited about 400 (everyone got a plus one), and 200 RSVP'd and came. My guess was always 250, as I knew many of my guests would come without a date, and I could assume which one's wouldn't travel. That being said, I always planned for 400 and if something crazy happened i'd be ready. Hotel room blocks usually only let you block 50 at a time, the one I did only let me do 25 and would expand as it was filled.

We also made sure both hotels with hotel blocks have some sort of shuttle to the reception. For one hotel, they provided it, but we had to arrange it ourselves with a transportation company for the other.

I'm going through the same thing now, only about 20 of our guests are in-town, but we're inviting about 80 people. I really appreciate all this advice too! We're probably going to get blocks at multiple hotels.

All of our guests are OOT. You have been given some great advice already so I'll just add that my guest have found our wedding website extremely helpful for them. We have listed on it several nearby hotels, restaurants and transportation options.

We decided not to do a hotel block because a lot of our guests simply wanted different things when it came to accommodations they felt comfortable with. So instead we just put as many different options as we could that were nearby (different price ranges etc ) so they could decide for themselves.

We also gave everyone, especially our VIPs (the people we would need there the most) as much notice as possible to plan and save up.

You really won't know how many will turn up until its time for RSVPS to come back. I'm planning for everyone but I'm still prepared for some disappointments as no matter how much you plan and prepare there will be some last minute things that arise that mean people won't be able to make it.

Yes, only invite the people you can actually pay for. block enough rooms for everyone and make sure you get a hotel that won't charge you if they don't book it. I think only like 10 are in town and the rest are from SC or other places.

lastly, give them a lot of notice! we are having a short engagement like 5 months so we had to send out STD as soon as we got engaged basically.