How long of a drive is considered OOT guest?

That may depend on the guest themselves, for me- if I had to drive more than an hour and a half at most I would find a hotel room.

2 hours?

I would consider anyone that has to travel more than 1.5 hours an OOT guest.

I consider anything more than an hour without traffic.

If it's over a 1.5 hour drive. I get a hotel for any wedding over an hour away, personally.

I consider anything that I can't uber (or take transit) to from my apt to be oot, since I like to drink at weddings and would not drive back home after.

I have gotten a hotel room for a wedding one hour away, since that was way too far to drive home after a wedding H was in unless we didn't want to drink. Even if we didn't drink much, we would be exhausted by the end of the night.

Two hours. Which can be 10 miles outside of NYC....

I was wondering this too - can we add to this? How far is too far for a hotel from the recpetion for OOT guests?

Yes ^^^ need to know this as well! And thank you everyone! I just realized more than half my guest are OOT

The venue we really like is 3 hours north. Local friends don't care and are excited, treating it as an overnight/weekend trip.

FH's brother is coming in from BC. We're talking about renting an Airbnb for the weekend for his brother and my OOT aunt. Unsure though. Things aren't finalized, so we could end up going with the venue in my town.

I'd say more than an hour travel time is OOT.

I think the hotel should be pretty close to the venue. I'd be surprised if the hotel block was more than 10-15 minutes away. We actually nixed a venue we were considering because the nearest option for a hotel block was going to be 20+ minutes away, and likely across a state line. Seemed inconvenient.

Since I'm in the middle of nowhere I was hoping 25 minutes wouldn't be too bad for the hotel to the reception.

Boinkin - I do think it depends on your area. We weren't planning our wedding in the middle of nowhere, so to realize how inconveniently located this one venue was, it ended up being a con for us. Especially since two of the four venues we were deciding between were hotels. Plus, almost every guest was out of town, and only a handful lived in the state where we chose to get married.

If the wedding is taking place in a town where hotels are very spread apart or the venue is on the outskirts of town, I'd understand a slightly longer drive between the venue and hotel.

Thanks Blue Hen - makes sense. The entire town I'm getting married in has everything far and few between. Also, they're adults, and I am hopign they can plan ahead for the 25 min drive

@mfb yeah they're all from out of state, and their hotel would be 25 minutes away from the reception

Over an hour drive.

Boinkin, one thing that might ease your mind about how far the hotel is would be to provide transportation for your guests from the hotel to the venue so guests don't have to worry about driving 25 min back after drinking. Also if you are more remote, cabs and uber aren't likely to be popular in that area, so guests wouldn't have any other options for transportation. I am doing this for my guests for this reason, even though my hotel is only 5 min away. 5 min is too far to drive drunk and cabs don't exist in my area.

@Rusty - I'm already providing valet, because we're getting married where parking and walking is going to be a pain, so we don't have a budget for a shuttle. It was one or the other, and the valet is a nice touch for everyone attending, not just those in the hotel. It was sophie's choice.

I figure people would carpool from the hotel (25 min away) and hopefully at least one person per car can be concious enough not to drive drunk.

Shuttle was a nice thought but it's not do-able unforturently.

Maybe you could make a discussion board on your wedding website or something so people could arrange a carpool?

I totally understand budgets don't always get us what we want. At the end of the day, adults are responsible for their own drinking and driving.

2+ hours is OOT in my mind, but I think this may be a regional thing. Like if you are from a rural area where you have to drive an hour to get anywhere, ever, 2 hours is no problem. If you're from a city or town where you typically drive 20 minutes to get from point A to point B, then 2 hours may seem like a long distance.

Agreed with PP, that I generally get a hotel at any wedding I am going to simply because I want to enjoy the wedding and drink, not because the drive is too long.