Hotel room bookings for wedding.

ondalash

So, myself and hubby to be are having a bit of an issue with our wedding venue and rooms available. It’s a small/med? hotel with approximately 60 rooms. We booked the venue over a year ago and it’s coming quite close now. Over Christmas some friends have told me they haven’t been able to book rooms as the hotel is booked out and not by our guests. It turns out that the wedding for the following day have pre-booked over 40 of the rooms for the night of our wedding. We have 9 rooms for the wedding party plus about 10 more for close friends and family. I feel very let down by the hotel manager for not informing us that rooms were being booked up so that we tell our people to get the finger out and get booking. Because this hotel is in the country the next nearest hotel is about 10 miles away. I am so angry about this that I am at the point of calling the hotel 10 miles away to see if they can hold the wedding and have room for the majority of our guests. Has anyone else had this kind of experience? Is it really you snooze, you lose even if you have a wedding booked?

drunkmonkey

Change of venue, residents bar is going to be full of someone else's wedding. Bad form by the hotel they should have really asked you.

upandcumming

ondalash wrote:

So, myself and hubby to be are having a bit of an issue with our wedding venue and rooms available. It’s a small/med? hotel with approximately 60 rooms. We booked the venue over a year ago and it’s coming quite close now. Over Christmas some friends have told me they haven’t been able to book rooms as the hotel is booked out and not by our guests. It turns out that the wedding for the following day have pre-booked over 40 of the rooms for the night of our wedding. We have 9 rooms for the wedding party plus about 10 more for close friends and family. I feel very let down by the hotel manager for not informing us that rooms were being booked up so that we tell our people to get the finger out and get booking. Because this hotel is in the country the next nearest hotel is about 10 miles away. I am so angry about this that I am at the point of calling the hotel 10 miles away to see if they can hold the wedding and have room for the majority of our guests. Has anyone else had this kind of experience? Is it really you snooze, you lose even if you have a wedding booked?

With most hotels you have a wedding rate that gets cut off in stages. 60 rooms at the start will get cut to 30 6 months before the wedding. Then 3 months after the rooms are what you call washed and released into the general sale pile. Having done contracts like this in the past it is a case of you snooze you lose in my opinion - this is something that should have been clarified by the bride and groom regarding specific dates and cut offs.

whiskeyman

Did you specify how the room availability would work in your contract?
If not, you really have no come back and it's only right the hotel take up on business.
It's not up to them to tell you either.
This is one of the risks of a smallish hotel with no other hotel nearby. You really need to check how the accommodation will work.

Pistachios & cream

I can see how annoyed you would be. It's bad form of the hotel. I got married in a similar size hotel and from day one the hotel was upfront about the accommodation and said we could block book the hotel up to 6 weeks before the wedding when they would release the rooms to the general public.

We were getting married in a different county and I asked about having our 2nd day at the hotel. The managers said providing food etc was no problem but accommodation could be an issue. Hotel would only guarantee us 10 rooms for the 2nd night.They had another wedding the day after ours and releasing extra rooms to us would be up to the other bride and groom.

In my opinion your hotel should have been equally as upfront and mentioned that accommodation was a problem.

Alkers

You could put on a bus between the two hotels if you don't want to change venue? Talk to the hotel and see what they say.

Sebastian Dangerfield

When we booked our wedding, we were told by the hotel they would only hold 20 rooms for us. I negotiated up to 50, then went home and booked up every room booking.com had to offer. Have you tried that? They may have some assigned to booking websites that are officially "booked" but may still be available.

harr

When we got married I know hotel only held 30 rooms for us again a small enough hotel...we let most family and friends know the date of wedding before the invitations went out ...I know most hotels will only hold rooms for a set time frame ...I think ours was 6 weeks before wedding.
It unfortunate that your hotel is booked up and maybe the hotel should have let you know about second wedding but if the room numbers were not included in contract I don't think there is much you can do...
A good number of our guests had to do with local bed and breakfasts because they left it to late to book room..
You should have maybe booked the full room allocation when booking wedding and then let hotel know exactly how many rooms you needed before wedding.

Gatica

Usually the hotel should inform you as to whether they're holding the rooms for you or not. This is something that should've been pre-agreed with you. A good hotel manager would suggest this to you, rather than you having to think about this or request this yourself, but realistically if they didn't say they were gonna hold the rooms exclusively for your wedding guests, then there's not much you can do, especially if it's not an exclusive use kind of venue. However, I would have a word with them and see if there's anything they could do.

slinky2000

Same thing happened to us, seems like some conference the next day have booked most rooms in the hotel the night before when we're having our wedding. We got our allocation but it's everyone else that's having problems getting rooms.

Have you tried the other sites like booking.com, hotels.com etc we got quite a few from their sites that the hotel had sold to these sites and were unavailable to book directly.

slinky2000

Same thing happened to us, seems like some conference the next day have booked most rooms in the hotel the night before when we're having our wedding. We got our allocation but it's everyone else that's having problems getting rooms.

Have you tried the other sites like booking.com, hotels.com etc we got quite a few from their sites that the hotel had sold to these sites and were unavailable to book directly.

Sunny Dayz

That's really bad form that the hotel didn't let you know about the accommodation, it's like they gave priority of the weekend to the other wedding. (I'm guessing yours is a Friday wedding if there is a wedding the next day).
While it's your first and only wedding to organise, the accommodation is usually something you do discuss with the management when negotiating your wedding contract with the hotel.
It might sound mean but it's not up to you to sort out the accommodation of your guests. It's up to your guests to sort themselves out for accommodation. When we got married we booked and paid for rooms for our parents, best man, bridesmaid and my gran. We reserved but didn't pay for rooms for our siblings and let all the other guests make their own arrangements.
OP Is your wedding long away, have invitations gone out yet?
I would firstly speak with your own hotel and find out how many rooms have been booked for your wedding and how many are left? I would then speak to the other hotel you mentioned and explain your predicament, perhaps they can do a good rate. You may have to organise a shuttle bus between the venues. Any B&B's nearby?

adocholiday

I'm having this exact same problem except my wedding is 6 months away! Hotel said that all of the rooms other than a small handful plus our reserve have been booked nothing they can do. Very upset with this because they were aware of our numbers and could at least have told us that space was filling quickly and to tell our guests.

I understand now that it's something we should have said when booking but I thought we'd be safe enough asking guests to book 6 months out! We're considering cutting our losses and changing venues if at all possible now

whiskeyman

Sunny Dayz wrote: »

It might sound mean but it's not up to you to sort out the accommodation of your guests. It's up to your guests to sort themselves out for accommodation.

It's not up to you to actually book your guests accommodation, but I think it is up to the bride and groom to ensure there is available accommodation for the wedding.
This is why most bride and grooms will stipulate room availability / block reserving in the contract.
As others have mentioned, this then gets released back to the hotel on certain timeframe if not taken up.
You can't just book any event and assume the accommodation is going to be there.
Put yourself in the hotels shoes. They'll take the business they can get.
I'm surprised at the amount of people who are surprised by this and think it's the hotels fault / are somewhat to blame.

SarahMollie

Legally it sounds like unless you stipulated it in your contract with the hotel that you can't do much. I'd agree that its bad form though, and I would let them know exactly how displeased you are.

Are you able to walk away at this point if the other hotel or would you loose your deposit? I'd say to take a few days to think about it before doing anything irreversible.

This reminds me, I need to get my BF to pull his finger out and reserve our room for one of his friends weddings in July!

SarahMollie

Legally it sounds like unless you stipulated it in your contract with the hotel that you can't do much. I'd agree that its bad form though, and I would let them know exactly how displeased you are.

Are you able to walk away at this point if the other hotel or would you loose your deposit? I'd say to take a few days to think about it before doing anything irreversible.

This reminds me, I need to get my BF to pull his finger out and reserve our room for one of his friends weddings in July!

lazygal

Another slant OP, we got married in a non hotel venue so there was no accomodation at all in the venue itself. There were limited hotel rooms available in a nearby hotel and BandBs, and some family members stayed with those living in Dublin. We didn't even think it was our job to ensure everyone had a place to stay, they're adults and I've always organised my own way to a wedding. We didn't really want the whole hotel residents bar thing and stayed in our own home on the night of the wedding. I would rarely stay overnight in a hotel for a wedding at this stage, it is too much money so we'd usually do a designated driver or book into a local bandb. it might not be the disaster you think.

Larbre34

lazygal wrote: »

We didn't even think it was our job to ensure everyone had a place to stay, they're adults and I've always organised my own way to a wedding.

It really is. If, that is, you wish to have a good crowd staying on late to party.

Before we started looking at hotels, we drafted a realistic guestlist, then divided it by 2, (less 10% to allow for locals and older folk) for a realistic number of rooms.

As a rule of thumb, for a 150 guest wedding, you'd want to have a minimum of 60 rooms block bookable until 90 days before the wedding.

We sent a 'save the date' 6 months before the wedding date to our most important guests advising them to get the room booked asap.

Im surprised any hotel didn't deal with that part of the contract explicitly and early on, because it is an issue of most concern to them, a full house for every wedding is how they make their money.

Milly33

I know it sounds horrible now but it kinda sounds like ye didn't suss the place out correctly.. Ye should have ensured this when booking the hotel not now. I get from both sides, but then you must see the place as a business also.

harr

Was asking a friend about his upcoming wedding and what rooms were available for us...he has booked 60 rooms for a 150 Guest wedding ...the rooms are booked by him all we have to do is ring and reserve a room...hotel were telling him to only take 30 and the rest on first come but he insisted on taking the full 60 and now with only 8 weeks till wedding only 26 couples have booked a room.
The hotel have told him any rooms he booked and not filled he will be charged for :rolleyes:
Any other wedding I was at it was up to guests to book rooms them self and the only rooms that were kept were for family members only... Also plenty of times I was given numbers of local bed-and-breakfast and hotels with wedding invitations.

clint_silver

any run of the mill hotel does same. Hold x amount of rooms until so long before the wedding, then theyre back into the pool of rooms they need to hire out so they can function as a business.

Your only job as B&G inviting guests is to let people know this in your invites that rooms are limited for a period of time only. The guests are adults. I wouldn't expect B&G or hotel to hold a room for me purely because I was a guest so dont worry about it.

As a suggestion If do you care that much about it, find a hotel any distance you like from your venue that does have availability and run a bus or ask that hotel nicely and see will that hotel run one. not unknown to happen.

ondalash

Thanks for the feedback guys....since its a local hotel I've been speaking to a few people, turns out the second wedding guests had been booked from about 6 weeks after we booked our date. Was talking to the manager today and all I got was you should have had your guests book sooner. (We could only reserve 10 rooms at booking)

I'm not after looking to pursue this matter legally, I just thought that out of decency and being local to the area (we have a lot of family and friends not local hence the need for accommodation) we could have been informed by the manager about the room situation. Myself and hubby2b are night owls and love the craic and banter at the residence bar after a good wedding. I'm just sorry my guests won't have this.

clint_silver

ondalash wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback guys....since its a local hotel I've been speaking to a few people, turns out the second wedding guests had been booked from about 6 weeks after we booked our date. Was talking to the manager today and all I got was you should have had your guests book sooner. (We could only reserve 10 rooms at booking)

I'm not after looking to pursue this matter legally, I just thought that out of decency and being local to the area (we have a lot of family and friends not local hence the need for accommodation) we could have been informed by the manager about the room situation. Myself and hubby2b are night owls and love the craic and banter at the residence bar after a good wedding. I'm just sorry my guests won't have this.

if its not a very strict hotel, they could still have that. In my experience, the amount of hotels that only let guests in to residents bar is in minority. I certainly wouldnt count on it happening, but things have a way of working out there.

upandcumming

whiskeyman wrote:

It's not up to you to actually book your guests accommodation, but I think it is up to the bride and groom to ensure there is available accommodation for the wedding. This is why most bride and grooms will stipulate room availability / block reserving in the contract. As others have mentioned, this then gets released back to the hotel on certain timeframe if not taken up. You can't just book any event and assume the accommodation is going to be there. Put yourself in the hotels shoes. They'll take the business they can get. I'm surprised at the amount of people who are surprised by this and think it's the hotels fault / are somewhat to blame.

Finally a bit of sense!
It's up to the bride and groom to make sure of room availability. The onus is not on the hotel to ring ye up, tell ye that the hotel will be busy and to get your guests to book soon - ridiculous idea. Used to have bride and grooms telling me how awful I was letting rooms be sold when they didn't get their guests to book by a certain date and it in their contract.

slinky2000

The problem is most bride and grooms aren't aware of this and hotels make zero effort to tell them about this. You would think hotels doing this every single week of the year would mention it to the couple when consulting about their contract, rather than presuming they know.

It's like getting a builder to build you a shed but not specifically requiring a door because you presume there will be one. If the builder isn't going to put a door on by default then he should mention it to you.

Sunny Dayz

But most guests don't go to book a room until they receive the wedding invitation, which is usually 6-8 weeks before the day. And you can't just assume that you'll be invited to a wedding, unless you are immediate family, a close friend or a member of the bridal party. What's the engaged couple supposed to do, go around and tell guests that they might be invited to the wedding and to reserve their room just in case?
I'm guessing "save the date" cards are for that purpose but I've only ever seen them being used for an Irish wedding for guests who are abroad and need to sort out travel arrangements.

Miss Merry Berry

I think it's poor form from your hotel. They should have at least let you block book 30 rooms or whatever. It seems business is business and they want the rooms sold at whatever cost. I wouldn't fret too much about it, our venue only has 4 bedrooms which will be reserved for our families only. We're hiring a bus to transfer guests back to B&Bs and hotels after but then we're not having a huge wedding so it's not a huge issue for us. I would be extremely firm with them to see what they can do for you now. They should at least offer to put on a few buses for you.

sweetie

You get married once (hopefully ) and the hotel does 50-100 weddings a year. I don't think it's too much to ask that they keep a client informed and updated on the room situation. Very hard to think of everything. Have you considered having your later bar in the other hotel? That'd teach 'em!

stargazer 68

Sunny Dayz wrote: »

But most guests don't go to book a room until they receive the wedding invitation, which is usually 6-8 weeks before the day. And you can't just assume that you'll be invited to a wedding, unless you are immediate family, a close friend or a member of the bridal party. .

Yep. We have been verbally invited to a wedding in the summer so I will need 2 rooms. Now the couple have reduced their guest list but we don't know who is off and who is on! They have also said that others have already booked rooms in the hotel but not at the wedding rate - those rooms are still being held. The wedding is 4 months away! We can't book yet as we won't get their rate but still dont know if we are invited! Blimey

Rose35

Dovies wrote: »

Yep. We have been verbally invited to a wedding in the summer so I will need 2 rooms. Now the couple have reduced their guest list but we don't know who is off and who is on! They have also said that others have already booked rooms in the hotel but not at the wedding rate - those rooms are still being held. The wedding is 4 months away! We can't book yet as we won't get their rate but still dont know if we are invited! Blimey

Most hotels have a cancellation policy 48hrs in advance of your stay, book it anyway on the chance you might be asked.
The hotel should only be telling them who have booked under the wedding rate anyway and not guests who are booked under the normal rate.

stargazer 68

Rose35 wrote: »

Most hotels have a cancellation policy 48hrs in advance of your stay, book it anyway on the chance you might be asked.
The hotel should only be telling them who have booked under the wedding rate anyway and not guests who are booked under the normal rate.

I booked in yesterday with booking.com - no deposit needed and free cancellation! Hotel didnt tell them it was the people who have booked.