Room Rates

Our venue dosn't have rooms, so we looked around the area and found a few options to offer people and let them book themselves. Its easier then for you and it gives them the choice of if they can afford to stay there or go somewhere else. We gave our hotel options to people before we sent the invites, but that was because most people had to travel quite far and its a busy city where we are having the wedding.

I'd ask your Moms / Dads / Sisters etc and that's all.

It would be a nightmare trying to collate everyone else's bookings.

Why don't you ring the hotel, say "We've noticed these rooms were previously £89 and are now £119. We are having our wedding on this date and we know a number of rooms will be booked for our guests, would you consider doing a group reservation for (say) 10 rooms and lowering the price to £89 for us?"

That's what we did. Not getting married in that hotel, but it is the cheapest one near our venue while still being fairly 'posh' (for want of a better word). So they gave us a code, which we put in our day invitations, and people wanting to book a room just give the code when they ring up to book and they get a cheaper rate. If fewer than 10 people book a room, that's fine, but I'm not sure what happens if more than 10 people want a room... maybe I should check! All guests settle their own accounts, we don't have to pay a penny.

yeh thats what i think im going to do! now i have to decide if i can afford to pay for the parents rooms - they are paying for the wedding so i think we should.

Check the cancellation policy. A lot of hotels have a cancellation policy of say 2pm the day before the booking. if this is the case, you can consider blocking off a number of rooms and then if anyone doesn't need them just cancel and they won't be charged. However, this will only work if the hotel doesn't require a non refundable deposit in advance to hold the room.

Aw that's a toughie - would be nice if you can, but not a big deal if you can't as I assume you haven't already mentioned it to them?

We were considering paying for OHs parents (as we are getting married in my home town) but I posted on here asking for opinions and others said they didn't so we didn't - i'm glas as they have now booked for 3 nights and OHs parents + sisters + Kids + Nan need 4 rooms - that would have cost us a small fortune!

I would not book for other people,too much stress. What i did was go into a hotel near my venue and asked what rate they would give us per room as a large booking. Gave an estimate that it would be likely we would be booking 5 or 6 rooms the night before the wedding and 10 or so the night of the wedding. She offered a rate (funnily enough also £89 for bed and breakfast) and said she would reserve the rooms until three months before.

I have put the website and the price on my invite and the date people have to book before to receive the reduced rate. It means i only have to worry about what i am doing/paying for and folk can sort themselves out.

Are you getting married / holding your reception in the hotel itself?

I work in a hotel myself, most hotels in this area will offer a rate reduction for a block booking of rooms attached to a wedding party (partly because there are some people who don't want to stay if there's a wedding going on in the hotel - fairly smallish hotels around here so you can't have a blocked off room to contain the wedding party while maintaining normal service in the rest of the building)

We would tend to take 10-15% off one night stays, 20% off 2 night stays and our function planner tends to take nearly 50% off of normal room rates for stays of 3 nights or longer - usually because that's the Bridal party arriving early and their costs are already high enough! We also offer the B&G a complimentary room for the wedding night for most weddings (unless it's a really tiny wedding!) - so it's worth asking if they'd do anything like that for you if you're spending enough money on the wedding itself??

Even if you're not having the wedding / reception there they might still do a block booking deal like others have suggested.

Well done some ringing round and we need 13 rooms so im sure if i ring them, they will do something on the price, and if not the i get staff discount so im not too concerned. just dont fancy paying £119 knowning yesterday they were £89!

As others have suggested, most couples just gather info from a few local hotels re prices and then include the names/prices/contact details for each hotel in their wedding invites - like a little information pack. It's stressful enough planning the wedding without chasing up people to book rooms (although we've had a few brides as for the list of people who've booked so they could kick the *** of people who hadn't bothered yet! - excuse for bridezilla like venting maybe?)

I think they will probably do something for you on the price.

The hotel we are using offer a 10% discount for guests that are staying at the hotel and if they stay 3 nights they get 25% off. The hotel also reserve all of the rooms for us for the night before the wedding and the night of the wedding and our guests just need to pay £50 deposit by 3 months before the wedding. If this is not done by 2 months before the hotel will inform us and if our guests dont want them they will release them for sale to the general public.

Its quite difficult though to find out who wants rooms so some of our guests are going to stay in nearby guest houses which are also cheaper!

Im sure the hotel will be happy to sort something out for you! Good Luck xx

Well i tried to book the rooms and apparently the hotel wouldnt release to superbreak to sell for £89, they said they'd only release to me at £140!!!!!!!!! majorly p**sed me off so didnt book any as only 2 at £89. wish id booked those now as they r now £159!