Room Block Mistake

I emailed the girl who set up our room block and haven't heard back. I plan on calling at lunch time today to try a get a hold of her. If we can't get any more rooms I'm going to start looking at another hotel. The reason I assumed this is because at literally every other wedding we've gone to the majority of our friends split rooms to keep costs down.

Same thing happened to me. I have a family that booked 5 rooms! Like can't any of them room together for gods sake! They won't give us any more rooms either. So it's a fend for yourself if you really want a room because they didn't book when I told them too

Honest mistake, but you've got lots of time, no stress!

Call your hotel and see if you can add on extra rooms. If not, get an extra block at a nearby hotel. I've been to plenty of weddings where they have had blocks in more than one hotel.

I think I'm making it a bigger deal than it is, but this entire process is really stressing me out!! We are providing a bus from the hotel to the reception so if we do two blocks I'll have to adjust that schedule. And hopefully check in at the first hotel is early enough so people can make the bus.

I don't understand why you got a block with a hotel you'd have to pay if rooms went unusued? Most do blocks that they release a month before your wedding so you don't get charged and in those cases, they generally open more rooms if necessary. For instance, we had a room block of 10 rooms and 10 suites and 10 condos. Once any of them were booked (the regular rooms were the first to go), they opened another however many to make it 10 rooms open at all times. A month before the wedding, they released all rooms they were holding. I would look at a different hotel for your extra rooms and try to find one that follows the above format. Low stress and no money from you.

Good luck! Hope it all works out for you...

We are partially in the same boat. We don't have enough rooms for Saturday and because there's other weddings that weekend, not sure we can obtain more rooms. Plus...the hotels in the area have a 2 night min because of the holiday and a big boat show going on. We are just figuring it out as we go at this point... Call the hotel, see what they can do and then start looking into other options, you got this!

The rooms do get released a month before the wedding, but if any of them went un-booked we would have had to pay. That was just their policy. There were 6 couples using that hotel as their wedding hotel the same weekend last year so realistically we probably would have been fine but still I was afraid to get stuck paying for all the extra unused rooms.

What Elizabeth said..

If the hotel releases the rooms a month prior to the wedding, why would you have to pay for any rooms in your block not booked? That seems like they are trying to get double money for one room.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. The rooms get released a month before the wedding, any of those rooms that don't get booked by the wedding we have to pay for. So essentially if we had 10 unused rooms by our wedding date we'd get charged for them. If those 10 rooms get booked by other people we are off the hook.

That still seems weird to me. If the hotel releases them, that should also release you from any financial responsibility. How are they going to prove that people didn't book hotel rooms a month before your wedding?

Don't assume they will share AND don't sign a contract to pay for rooms that are not used! I have 2 room blocks and I made sure I wouldn't have to pay anything. Look at another hotel in the area do another hotel block for other guest.

When PP's are saying the rooms get "released" they mean that they are available for other guests (outside of your wedding) to book. They are no longer blocked at that point. So a hotel that releases unbooked rooms by a certain date would not charge you for unbooked rooms. It sounds like what OP is saying is that people can book the rooms starting 1 month before the wedding.

We blocked 20 rooms. 3 weeks before the wedding if any rooms aren't booked, they'll be released. We will not be charged for anything.

How much are the rooms you blocked? that sounds like alot of money if you had to pay for 10 unused rooms

We booked 35 rooms between Friday and Saturday and have to sell 80% of them. I just used 10 as an arbitrary number. And also they can tell if our guests book the room because they have a special link they go on and book a room through that. I can see all the guests that have bought a room through our block.

If my guests book a room there and don't use the link they just pay full price, is that what you are asking? When they release the rooms then that link is no longer active and people cannot book a room in our block

Actually one of the hotels we were looking at had a similar policy. So I totally understand.

Definitely call them to see if you can get more. It happens pretty often I am sure! Good luck!

I also have a hard time believing that 6 months before your wedding the hotel doesn't have the availability to extend the amount of rooms in your block.

Thank you @Ohheyitscait! Maybe it's a regional thing. And I assume this hotel does it so I don't ask for 60 rooms and only book 30 of them leaving those extra 30 rooms empty.