Deposit for blocking inns rooms?

No that is not normal. What are you looking for specifically? Rooms for guests at the wedding venue? Or in order to get the rooms they require you use them as your wedding venue? Run far away from that hotel and warn people that you are demanded to pay a crazy amount just for rooms.

Ask for a courtesy block which sets the rooms aside but you are not required to pay a fee. Also often it is actually cheaper to get a room not part of a block. But a block is helpful in making sure rooms are available in heavily populated areas during peak times.

I'm not familiar with this practice. When I had a room block, I just secured the rooms without payment but with the understanding that I had a secure block from which my guests could book their rooms at a discounted rate until a certain date. The guests would book the room and pay the hotel directly and there was no money out of my pocket. If the rooms were not booked by a certain deadline, the block rooms would be released to the general public for booking. Unless you are in an area with limited lodging options, I wouldn't pay a deposit for a room block -- I'd look for other options.

I’ve never heard of this for room blocks at hotels, but if you’re talking about rooms inside a venue or a private place then maybe its just their policy. Personally I wouldnt do it, and would just get a room block at a hotel since that is normally free even if no one books.

Not that I know of when we booked a block at my inn the inn just black listed those days for anyone outside of the wedding party (they sent us a specific link to use) until 2 weeks before the event.

Yes, so it’s a really rural area and there aren’t other hotels nearby for an hour or so. It’s an inn/venue attached and there are maybe a few other smaller inns a bit away from it. We aren’t required to book all of the rooms but there was a discount so we thought that would be great but I got to thinking and tried to figure out if this is normal. We’ve fallen in love with the venue but now I’m worried by the comments that this isn’t good at all 😬

This seems normal considering you’re asking for them to hold all the rooms at the hotel. They do this a security measure in case you don’t use up all the rooms. Others are mentioning that this is not normal, but it’s also not normal for someone to book an ENTIRE hotel. Most only do courtesy blocks or smaller blocks. If the hotel is holding all their rooms for you and they have to turn down others who were interested in staying there that night, what happens when you don’t end up using all the rooms? You essentially lost them money. This deposit assures them making money off the reserved rooms that night even if you aren’t able to fill up all the rooms.


I had a room block at a small boutique hotel/resort. We blocked off half of the rooms (50 out of 100 rooms). We had to have booked at least 90% of those blocked rooms a month before our wedding or else we were on the hook for those unused rooms. They didn’t charge us a deposit, but that’s because they had our credit card on file and we also had a private after-party booked at their restaurant lounge. So in their eyes, we were pretty low-risk since we had already paid a large deposit for the after-party alone.

Booking all the rooms at the inn is a bit different than a block that can be released after a deadline so other people can rent them.
It sounds like the rooms won’t be open to anyone else if your wedding doesn’t take them all?

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Completely agree with this. Room blocks are normally a courtesy at hotel chains like Marriott or Holiday Inn, but you're asking a private inn to hold the entire hotel for you. If the last day to reserve comes around and only 10 of your guests have rooms reserved, you just screwed them out of a ton of money. Only put the deposit down if you're sure you have enough guests travelling to cover all the rooms.

Yes, my place charges similar which is why we just went ahead and booked our two rooms that we need to get ready in (bride n groom) and then additional two rooms. If anyone else needs a room we are leaving it up to them to get. We won’t even be staying in any of the rooms overnight, we just got 4 for people that we knew wanted them. If anyone else decides that they need a room they’re going to have to get it themselves. The rooms are super expensive and not to mention you will be responsible if any random guests get a room block and something gets damaged or they back out last minute. at this point, if people don’t know how to book hotel rooms for themselves there’s nothing I can do. I have to focus on my wedding.

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Thank you both! This is what I was thinking but I was definitely stressing myself out. The inn is super small, twelve rooms and run by only a few people! Initially I hadn’t even thought twice about it but now that we’ve seen it a few times and we’re closer to booking it I was getting overly worried about it but you have definitely reassured me about it!

View Quoted Comment This is exactly why.
It is normal practice for what you are wanting to do.