How to Block Hotel Rooms for a Wedding
You have reserved the venue, caterer, florist and officiant, and your wedding to do list seems complete. But when planning a wedding, you cannot neglect your duties as host or hostess. Part of this is making sure your guests have somewhere to stay. Fortunately, reserving a block of rooms at an area hotel can take as little as 10 minutes.
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Instructions
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Call or use the internet to find out rates at area hotels. Narrow down your search by selecting hotels near your wedding or reception venue. Make sure to inform the reservation agent that you are inquiring about booking several rooms and want to know about discount rates for large reservations.
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Select a hotel or hotels with the best rates. Choose at least two hotels in different price ranges to accommodate guests with higher and lower travel budgets.
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Call the selected hotels once again and inquire about the rates for a large booking. Do not quote the rate you were originally given; instead allow the reservation agent to provide you with another rate quote. If the second rate is higher than the first, inform the agent of the rate you were given during the previous call. Most hotels will honor this original rate, particularly for a large block of reservations.
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Inform the agent that you want to block off rooms for your wedding guests. Inquire as to the rules and restrictions for reserving room blocks, including cancellation requirements and fees, deposits and occupancy level requirements. Do not use the hotel if the fees are excessive or terms are unreasonable.
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Consider the make-up of your wedding party when blocking rooms. If several of your guests have children, make sure to book rooms with double beds as well as king or queen bed rooms.
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Reserve the rooms for at least one day before the start of your wedding events and one day after the last event. For example, if you are planning a rehearsal dinner on Friday and a post-ceremony brunch on Sunday, reserve your room block for Thursday through Monday. This ensures the hotel will have rooms available for your guests. Guests can change the dates to fit individual travel arrangements upon making the actual reservation.
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Provide a credit card to guarantee your reservation if required by your chosen hotel. Make sure to find out when you must release any unreserved rooms in order to avoid charges to your credit card.
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Tips & Warnings
If your wedding ceremony or reception will take place at a particular hotel, the fact that you have already have arranged a service with the facility can work as an incentive to provide you a discounted rate.
References
- Photo Credit woman operator phone image by Julia Britvich from Fotolia.com
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Comments
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Glenda Harris
Feb 10, 2011
Most quality hotels have sales managers that will guide you through this whole process easily. That will eliminate the need to call back multiple times for different rates, and also eliminate the need to read most of this useless and poorly researched article
