Hotel Blocks - yay or nay

I would encourage you to do a courtesy block if you’re able. I chose the cheapest hotel that was decently nice and decently close (ended up with a Courtyard by Marriott).

I would do 2 courtesy blocks, one at a nicer hotel and one at a cheaper hotel. They are free and easy to set up, and very helpful to guests.

I'm working on my website, and we've decided to recommend 3 hotels. In 2 (of the 3) hotels we arranged courtesy blocks thru Marriott. One of the Marriott's is more expensive bc it's in a central, popular part of the city with great views. The other Marriott is a Courtyard (cheaper). The 3rd hotel where we don't have a block is a fun, boutique hotel where the wedding party is staying. We didn't block at this one bc you are financially on the hook if not all of the 10 rooms are booked (sorry not taking the risk on that.... lol). We have about 80 guests from out of town so I think they'll appreciate the recommendations and options. Good luck!

Definitely do one. We have a ton of hotels in our area (like over half a dozen within a 10 mile radius that were reasonably priced—under $200 per night) and it’s not a touristy place or anything (most of the hotels are in a corporate area) so I figured we’d be fine but then 2 months before the wedding I found out they were ALL booked except for one. Thank god my husband’s best man figured that out in time because I called immediately to make a room block at that last hotel!


Just make sure they don’t charge a fee or anything if the rooms don’t get used, and then there’s really no harm in booking one. If it gets used then great, if not then no harm.

If hotels book up fast in your location or there’s an event that weekend, it would be worth it. To me it was a total waste. Most of them went unused and I discovered later the block price was higher than their website price.

We aren’t going to do blocks. We have some family and friends coming in from out of state but they all don’t know each other and have different financial abilities so we are just posting some close by options a high middle and cheap option and letting everyone do their own booking .

There were tons of options within 10 miles of daughter's venue in a major suburban area, but no one hotel super close (guests would have to drive 10-15 minutes). The wedding was also in January, not a high travel/tourism time of year. Probably about a third of the guests were from out-of-town, but they all had very different needs and were staying different lengths of time. One family was doing a timeshare for a week and planned to spend multiple days at Disneyland prior to the wedding. Many belonged to different hotel rewards programs and had preferences for different chains. After we looked into it, daughter decided not to do a block and just provided clear info on the wedding website (shared on the STDs and the wedding RSVPs were fully online, so guests HAD to visit the website). It worked out great. Guests stayed in a wide-variety of different hotels and everyone seemed fine with making their own choices. If there was one super close/convenient hotel option, or it was a busy time of year, she probably would have done a block. I do think it depends on many factors whether it makes sense or not.

If you have a significant number of people that will need a hotel a courtesy block is really nice to have.

We did a courtesy block because it gave our guests a discount. Plus, we arranged for a shuttle from the hotel to the venue for really cheap through them. There were 2 hotels within 2 miles of our venue, and we were going to do blocks at both because they were at different price points. However, in researching the two, I saw recent reviews about bedbugs and cleanliness concerns for the cheaper one, so I stuck with just the Courtyard by Marriott because I didn't want to direct guests to a potentially unsanitary hotel. We also got an upgraded room for no extra cost because we did the courtesy block.