Anyone ever not reserve a block of hotel rooms?

If you're having a destination wedding or lots of out of town guests, I think it's courteous, but not a necessity.

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We have about 30% of our guests that will need to book a place to stay

I recommend the block, most places will offer a courtesy block meaning it’s free to block it. If it costs money you can reconsider but if it’s free, why not?

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True, that's a good point!

We didn’t because no hotels in our area offer a courtesy block and we didn’t want to be held financially responsible. Almost all of our guests needed a hotel.

We did, but it’s only because we are getting married in the hotel’s courtyard. If weren’t, I don’t think we would have done a block. I think just giving guests a list of hotels near your venue would suffice. Unless you would like a good portion of your guests to stay in the same hotel. If that’s the case, then a room block may be beneficial.

I think it’s nice for out of town guests if you can find a courtesy block. If you are responsible for a certain amount I would skip it and just make recommendations

I did it and it was a waste of time honestly.

We have 60% who need room so we have blocked 25+ rooms

We aren't. Its early enough that everyone will be able to converse but late enough that everyone can make it and get enough sleep

We go to a lot of OOT weddings, and usually find it easy to find our own accommodations, unless there is some other event. College towns during move in, homecoming and graduation weekends, or near big shows or conventions, the room blocks are a help. Otherwise, it helps to have a listings sheet, with several recommended places, nearby to events. And in some cities, forewarning about things like huge parking fees if you do not stay in a major hotel with parking . From outside Boston, for example, a nice place $50 a night cheaper may cost that much to park. So the host's knowledge, more than reserved booking, matters.

We were going to skip it since there are a ton of hotels in our area and it’s not a particularly touristy place (we live in NJ about an hour outside of NYC... there are a lot of hotels but they’re mostly corporate) but then as the wedding got closer we discovered ALL BUT ONE of the local hotels were FULLY booked that weekend. I panicked and booked a room block at the last one lol. I still have no idea why they were all so booked that weekend but... better safe than sorry honestly. Just find a hotel that will block off rooms for free (like one that won’t charge you if you don’t fill all the rooms) and you literally have nothing to lose by getting a block.

I'm suggesting Airbnb and some local hotels for out of owners, but i'm not doing a hotel block

We had a handful of guests from out-of-town. However, we didn't reserve a hotel block. They booked rooms on their own and didn't seem to have any issue!

We are not

This helped me alot for When I have to worry about this

We’re not blocking rooms. We’re having a destination wedding in Vegas, so guests have loads of hotel options. However, we do have a discount code only for our specific hotel, if guests choose to stay there.

It's a thing some couples do. We did more research and quickly decided not to do it because we would eventually financially responsible even if they don't show up. We listed some hotels on our website.

I skipped it. We for sure had out of town guests too but it was something I felt like wasn't necessary for us to do.

We ended up skipping this because I always got the run around with hotels about placing a block and it just was getting to the point where it was more stress than it was worth.

What I did was put a little note with our save the dates that asked people to book accommodations ASAP and gave the addresses and phone numbers for the hotels so that they could contact them! So far it seems like everything has gone fine! FH and I just booked our room and there were TONS of rooms left so I don't anticipate having any issues!