Hotel How To’s

Hello Gorgeous!

As wedding planners, we believe it is a HUGE part of our jobs to help educate our couples about the little things that make up a successful event. Let’s discuss a little bit about hotel room blocks. This is something that many clients forget about until closer to the date. It certainly doesn’t feel like the most glamorous part of the wedding planning process, however, it truly can be essential to the ease of travel for your guests. Here are a few tips to help make this process easier.

1. Do this fairly early in the planning process

Hotel availability and rates are very much influenced by the goings-on in the city, and many times these barriers aren’t known by the public. Yes, things like city-wide festivals or marathons can make a huge difference in rates/availability, but also things like local children’s soccer tournaments or even family reunion season can affect a wedding block. Our advice is to go ahead and get this piece off of your list and onto your wedding website as soon as possible!

2. Check if a Courtesy Room Block is available

Courtesy Blocks are our favorite because there is no financial obligation to the couple. These allow you to hold a certain number of rooms out of hotel inventory until a given “cutoff date” under a group name for your event. Your guests get a guaranteed room rate until that date and then the remaining rooms are released back into the hotel’s inventory. Simple as that! However, you should know some hotels don’t offer courtesy blocks at all, and some only offer them at certain times of year. Finding a hotel that offers Courtesy Blocks can take a little research and a lot of phone calls. If you are working with one of the Certified Wedding Planners with Infinity Events, we can certainly help you with this process!

3. Don’t go crazy with the number of rooms you reserve for your guests

Hotel Room Blocks are a gorgeous courtesy to offer to those out of town guests, however, the reality is that many of the traveling guests will also have their own hotel memberships or lodging preferences. There are a large number of guests who will not take you up on the group rate and choose to stay somewhere else. In a world where Airbnb is so popular, we have to plan for this! When considering how many rooms to block, our advice is to start with about 50% of the rooms actually needed for the expected traveling guests. Keep up with how many rooms have been picked up throughout the planning process, and if you need to add some more, typically the hotels will accommodate!

We know that this process can seem daunting, but don’t worry! Give us a call and we can help talk you through all of the tiny details that make wedding planning such a journey. We are here for you.

Xoxo,

The Infinity Events Team