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I would suggest offering a hotel for OOT. Some OOT of town guest may not have a desire to attempt to research all of the hotels and find the cheapest, so it is a commodity for the guest to be able to simplify the process for them.
I would suggest a mid-range hotel, such as Marriott by Courtyard or Hampton Inn.
Alternatively, you may select a hotel which is close to the reception site. (Read: less liability on getting guest back home safely if alchohol is involved)
Obviously you will never satisfy everyone, so just use your best judgement. There will be some guest who decide to stay at the cheapest or most unique, but they will be the guest who want to do the research anyways, so let them have their fun.
Good Luck!
I think it's great to save a block of rooms for your guests so that you save them some money, you have some security as far as room availability, and everyone is in the same place that weekend.
That being said, when you are the one organizing it all, it can be a huge pain. Many of the Marriotts have require that you book a minimum number of rooms (15 in our case) for TWO Nights and they require blocks to be paid for if they aren't booked by your guests.
For us, it wasn't worth it to block rooms with the Marriott, even though it is closest to our venue, since the majority of the wedding party (ie. the people that would be staying for two nights) will be staying at a local bed and breakfast. We ended up booking a block of rooms with the Doubletree because they did not have a min. number or nights, and they will release the rooms to the public 1 month before the wedding if they have not been booked.
I would say a good price is $100-$140 is a good price depending on if your wedding is in a city or a more rural area. Basically, just embark on a lot of research to see what is offered in your area.
Good Luck!
If you reserve a block, you often get a better rate than if people call on their own to make reservations. Just be sure to let guests know the release date for rooms in the block so they know the deadline for reserving their room at the block price. This is usually a win-win situation - your guests get a better rate at a hotel you have seen and can recommend. And if the rooms don't all get reserved, no harm done.
Our reception is at a hotel which requires you to fill 80% of the rooms you reserve or pay for them if they remain unfilled. We reserved a conservative amount of rooms since it will be most convenient for guests to stay where the reception is and the rate is very good. But we have also given out info on nearby hotels by providing the 800#s on our website and STDs.
You do often get a better rate. We've reserved a block of rooms, and got a discount for our guests, albeit a small one.
I suppose part of it, too, depends on where your wedding is. We're getting married in a very small town with few accommodation options, at a time of year when hotels could conceivably be full, and we have a really significant number of out of town guests. My fiance and I have rented houses for the wedding party (most of them are traveling a long way, and we thought paying for accomodations was the least we could do, but we can't afford hotel rooms for all the members of the rather large bridal party), but we knew we still needed to reserve hotel rooms, too. In fact, just last week we had to add rooms to our block. I'm actually worried that we still won't have enough.
Thanks so much for your responses! The hotel I'm most looking at is $220/night, which *at the moment* is about 148 pounds (the currency in which most OOT will be using). I'm looking in downtown baltimore and unfortunately, its right at the height of the tourist season, at which most hotels tend to be $20-40 more than the avg price on TripAdvisor.
So far my favorite hotel will let you claim a certain amount of rooms, but they'll be released 45 days prior to the 1st check in date. So that seems pretty good.
I like the idea of renting a house, because that could be a really great way to save money!
we got a better rate to do our reservation, at the cost of having a "one month in advance" cutoff on the discount & one week to cancel, instead of 24 hour cancellation
just do one that is close by for the people who aren't as internet savvy & may want to stay near each other, like your relatives...I reserved 15 rooms, but I didn't have to put down a deposit
I am also a UK/US bride!! ANd have a big group of Brits coming over to NY. We have reserved a mid-priced hotel that is near everything as no-one will have a car. It has easy access to the train station from the city and airport. Plus there are many shops and restaurants within easy walking distnace. The church is only 2 blocks away but we are putting on a bus service for them. We have used Hilton Garden Inn. They have given us a great price, cards and a website for people to book their rooms through (which is great for UK guests so they dont have to call the US to book a room) They also release rooms that arent booked a month before so you arent finacially commited to anything. It is also the hotel we will be staying at so we will can carry on the oarty there afterwards if we want ans all have breakfast together in the mroning.
Renting a house is also a great idea, although I tend to find there are a little more remote than hotels. If transprt isnt a problem it is a great way of saving money.
Good Luck with all the planning, I know how hard it is for you. And with the pound rate dropping like you wouldnt believe Ahhhhhhh!!!
I just had my wedding in Annapolis and the majority of my guests were from NJ. I reserved a block of rooms at 2 hotels - the hotel where the wedding was being held ($175/night) and one a little further up the road ($109/night). While almost everyone stayed at the wedding hotel, I felt better about offering options in various price ranges so that guests could decide how much they wanted to spend. And yes, the block rate is often way better than the regular booking rate. The cheaper hotel regular rate was $140; I negotiated down to $109.
Then you can just put that info in with your wedding invitations (or save the dates) and if people don't like what you've blocked, they will find their own place.
I just set up our room blocks. Our wedding is on the sound in CT and those hotel rooms are upwards of $200/night in the summer. I have blocks held at 3 different hotels and they range from $85 to 120 for Thursday night to $120-150 for Friday and Saturday night. (We're having a Friday night wedding)
I did 3 hotels partly because I was thrilled at something to do with this wedding that didn't cost us anything!!!!! But also so they had a range and could avoid paying high in season summer rates for a beach town.
I think Room blocks are a good idea and if they don't want to stay there then they dont' ahve to but at least somehting was made available for them....
mail.jpeg (6.7 KB, 134 downloads) 2 years old 
When we did our wedding we had a block of rooms at the hotel the reception was held at. We were offered a discounted rate of $99 per night which could be pricey for some guests but most of the older guests (aunts, uncles, and grandmas) they did not mind paying that much and it was a very nice hotel normally sold for $199 per night. I also did list a few hotels in the cheaper range in a part of town that most of the wedding events would be held. Most did stay at the hotel we had the reception at. I am not sure if anyone used the others mentioned.
I went around to pretty much all of the hotels in the area made arrangements for room blocks. Its pretty easy to do and the sales rep does it all of the time.I put all of the information on my website to allow them to make a decision. Just make sure you have a large time span, I didn't realize people would fly out a week before hand.
Here is my wedding website if you're curious... http://adaashley.googlepages.com/ryanandashley%27swedding
We got room block at two different hotels: one more reasonable and the other for those really wanting luxury. We're betting most people will stay at the more affordable option, but it can't hurt to offer your guests the choice. We also looked at less traditional housing like rental homes by owner. You might look at vrbo.com (Vacation rentals by owner). Good luck:)
We had room blocks at two hotels, a Hilton Garden Inn (at $69/night, a very basic but nice hotel) and an Embassy Suites (at $99/night, a very nice but not over the top hotel). Our guests were about equally distributed between the two. I also included a link to kayak.com's hotel finder on my wedding webpage if people wanted to find their own accomodations.
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Hi everyone!
I'm looking into setting aside a block of hotel rooms for our OOT guests. I've heard pluses and minuses on both sides of reserving a blocks or not. I don't know how to find a "good price" for our guests, since I don't know a sensitive way of asking, is "$XXX per night okay with you best man, how about you future mother in law".
I guess my real question is, is it best to set aside a block of rooms in a hotel and also have other reccomendations for the areas peopel should stay in? Or is it best to just let guests find their own accomodations and not worry about setting aside a block of rooms?