What would you think of this if you were a wedding guest?

[eggwhitesandsugar]

Is this U?

DP and I are getting married next year. We are looking at venues & thinking of hiring a huge place and doing the rest self catering etc. For us it's important to have everyone there (both of us), self catering (me - used to be a caterer, I'll only eat my own food on my wedding day!) and pretty/posh (DP - my number #1 choice of a BBQ in a marquee in a field was vetoed immediately... I did the same to his, don't worry!).

Current favourite venue we are viewing at the weekend sleeps 64 if we hired all cottages, but we have 100 guests. There is a Premier Inn/other options nearby.

We have family who will be travelling from different countries + elderly/infirm, so they take priority.

Is it U to say: 'Accommodation comes with the venue but is limited to 64 people, those travelling furthest get first dibs, please RSVP if you would like to stay with us over the weekend'. I don't want people to feel hard done by because some people got a free stay (but paid more to travel?). Is it so divisive that we'd be better off asking people to pay a token amount, e.g. £40 per couple per night?

This assumes we can book it... however we'd like to do something similar wherever we go.

Should add we are looking at places with accommodation as not many of his relatives speak English and some of mine are relatively disabled... it's easier for everyone if we are self-contained.

So you'd be paying for 64 guests, and the rest have to pay for themselves?

Why not just include the cottage information for the 64 that you want to stay at the cottages, and put the other options in for those who won't be staying at the cottages?

That's it Midnite. I think I just need more sleep and this is a non issue I thought about just writing it in cards but then I don't want us to have spare rooms that people could have stayed in. I just want a polite way of saying that if you want accommodation we have it but that those travelling furthest are a higher priority.

I know you have people's best interests at heart, but people will find a way to make it sound unreasonable as they squabble over who replied first, who should get the rooms, etc.
Better to save all the hassle and allocate the accommodation to the 64 people who need it most. For the rest, provide details of alternative accommodation.

Sounds as though you're going to have your work cut out with all the catering!

BTW, congratulations :)

I think people expect to pay for their accommodation if they are travelling for a wedding, but it would be mean and divisive to give free accommodation to some guests and not others, so you should ask the people staying on-site to pay. But don't advertise the rooms as more available than they actually are:

For the 64 people you are inviting who do live furthest away, they should have a note saying something like "we have reserved on behalf of any guests who would like to stay at the venue itself rooms at a special rate of £20pppn and as you have quite a way to travel we have earmarked one for you - please let us know by xx date (sooner than the RSVP date) if you want to do this."

For the other 36 people, they should get a note saying something like "here is a list of local B&Bs and hotels should you wish to arrange to stay nearby - there may also have a small number of rooms on-site available at £20pppn but we won't be able to confirm this till xx date, please let us know if you'd like us to try to get one for you"

Thank you :)

The catering should be fine - I did my cousin's wedding this summer with my sister (who also worked as a caterer). As long as people don't mind a bit of self-service it'll be okay. Mostly I can't stand normal catering food (as I know what goes in it!) and we definitely can't afford a very high quality meal - it's a choice of venue or paid meal and we've chosen venue.

I think it sounds like extraordinarily hard work.

Surely you will need to hire the cottages quite a long way in advance? So how are you going to work it with the invitations?

Thanks Kaylee that's an excellent idea, we'll do that :)

I have read so many wedding AIBUs on here, am determined not to be the subject of one of them (other than ones I start, obviously)!

My brothers wedding was at a hotel with self catering apartments and hotel rooms. They block booked everything but didn't have to pay on booking.

When the invites went out guests were told there was limited accommodation at the hotel and were given a list of nearby B&Bs too

Then it was left to basically first come first served. No one complained and everyone paid their own accommodation.

ive never been to a wedding with free accommodation

I was invited to a wedding with pre-booked accom at a special rate, right at the venue. As with yours, the room numbers were limited. We missed out as I confirmed too late, but it never occurred to me to feel shirty about it, just annoyed at myself for being such a slacker! I think any guest in their right minds would think the same

Offer the accommodation to everyone at a really low rate of say £30 - £40 on a first come first served basis.
But...... heres the sneaky bit.... send the invites out to the ones you think deserve the accommodation more a week early.

This way you should get those who need the accommodation more in the cottages and you'll get something for the cost of the cottages which you could either:
a) put behind the bar or
b) put towards to he cost of the travel inn for other guests ????

Allocate the accommodation to the top 64. I think saying the people who travelled the furthest have first dibs makes the other guests sound like they are not important.

First come first served, otherwise there's another hotel >>>> sort of thing.

This sounds like a fantastic wedding, and you are VERY generous and considerate. I can't imagine that it would occur to anyone to grudge the free accommodation to foreign or disabled guests.

Sounds lovely. Why not charge £30 per cottage, and make it a charitable donation? That way, people won't feel really cheeky in asking for the free accommodation, and those who need it most will book it first anyway. Just make sure that those who need it most get their invites at the same time as the others, and have equal opportunity to reply. There will be no external moderator checking who actually replied first if you get several on the same day for the last cottage, and if there is a small charitable charge, nobody could be upset. Just make sure the charity isn't too controversial! Good luck and congratulations.

We had a similar situation. We actually chose who we wanted to offer the on site accommodation/cottages to. We pre booked them, and in the invites of those people advised them we had reserved them a room/cottage at the venue and that if they wanted to confirm the reservation they needed to pay x by x date. (We found this the easiest way as we had to put multiple couples in a cottage and also wanted to ensure cottages were used for the full 3 nights). The remaining guests got a nearby hotel (with preferential rate) suggested. When/if spare cottages became available we contcted hotel guests to offer it to them

£40 per couple sounds like a bargain. I don't think it needs to be a charitable donation, I've never had wedding accommodation paid for me, even when I've been a bridesmaid. If you had any spare money, you could book a mini bus to shuttle people from the town/hotels to the venue. I don't think you need to though.

Maybe consider reserving some rooms at the premier inn too as a back up for the people who miss out on the cottages? They often do flexible rates which can be cancelled.

I would say first come first served and perhaps stagger invitations by a week. People can't complain if you've made it clear there's limited availability and it's first come first served. Perhaps sort out parents/bridesmaids/siblings/best man before you send out the invitations. I would have been able to choose maybe 4 couples as essential for my wedding, but I'd have no chance of selecting 32! It's too difficult to know who's going to drive, who will be travelling together, who wants a longer weekend etc.

For my wedding last year we booked rooms for immediate family at the venue, everyone else was given a list of nearby accommodation and it was down to them to sort it out. You just need to make it clear there is limited availability and that if they leave it too late they may have to stay further afield. Sometimes no amount of prompting will get people to book with less than two weeks to go so it just has to be down to the guests to take responsibility!

We got married in London and paid for the hotel for all guests that had flown in from Italy/elsewhere (Italian wedding etiquette in DH's part of Italy dictates that). We also had priest and photographer coming from Italy too so of course paid for them. Plus like you mostly non-English speakers so I needed them in one place so we could corral them! We didn't pay for people who were able to go home afterwards (all guests lived local to London). We sent out a 'fuori d'arancio' email (save the date) with all flight into etc ahead of invites (we arranged airport transfers too) and I block booked a number of rooms. The hotel was flexible though so I was able to confirm at last minute.

Personally I think your plan sounds fine but I'm used to idea that you provide accommodation for long distance guests.

I think you should reserve the cottages for those traveling or with health problems.

And in the invite put a note saying that accommodation at the venue has been reserved for those who need it most, sorry for the inconvenience if you wanted to book this but the nearest hotels / b and b are at ..........

Oriunda I didn't realise that about Italian wedding etiquette. DP's cultural contribution is that paid bars are unheard of - he turned up to his first English wedding with no cash. Which is why we are thinking of renting a self catering place... I think we'll save £ overall by buying the booze ourselves even though it's an expensive venue. I also think, from what he has said, that it's not the 'done thing' to self cater either but he's not so fussed about that as long as the venue looks 'pretty'.

I have taken on board the replies. I did work out our rough guest list as 100 was our first estimate and I think we'll be okay - everyone who is travelling (i.e. not our closest, local friends) can be accommodated and our closest friends know us well enough not to be bothered about an explanation. It helps that most of them aren't English so they know full well the logistics of a mixed culture wedding. Also there are quite a few small children so I'm guessing travel cots can be used - another reason why we wanted everyone to stay, so that our friends could party with us rather than leaving when the children got tired (we have planned to hire a couple of babysitters).

I think we will ask for a token payment and put it towards the alcohol costs.

Same here. Every wedding is an 'open bar' and it would be unheard of (not to say a scandal!) if guests were made to pay for own drinks. Even the gift etiquette is very strict. People spend an awful lot on a gift (usual thing is they leave an amount with the shop holding the gift list) and as a minimum the amount needs to cover the cost of the meal x no of family members. When it's time for one of your guests (or guests' children) to get married then, even if you don't attend, you need to match the amount they spent on you. My MIL has an exact tally in her head of how much someone spent on our present so when it's another family wedding she makes sure we have repaid the debt!

We also found that those friends with young children left them back home (even though we had stated children welcome). The chance of an all-expenses paid trip to London made it tempting to leave kids behind. We only had 2 young children, one of whom was our BM and her parents said if she hadn't been BM they would have left her.

Majestic was our friend. Bought in all our drinks and were able to take all unopened bottles back for a refund!

My wedding was in a self-catering holiday house. We hired it for the weekend, and brought in outside caterers. It was a small wedding - about 35 guests, and the house slept 20, so we had the same issue.

I just allocated rooms to the people that I wanted to be there for the weekend (immediate family, and friends coming from further away). Then we put on a mini-bus to transport everyone else from their accommodation, or the centre of town.

I didn't really worry about people being annoyed at not getting a room, and never heard of any complaints. There were no staff at the venue, so the people who stayed were helping with the set up of everything (it snowed on the day, so they did end up having to work for it, pushing the caterers van up the drive!).

I found it a really good way to do things - it meant we could provide accommodation and (since the venue wasn't licenced) free drink all weekend, for the same price as a typical "2 glasses of wine with the meal, and 10% off an overpriced hotel room" package at a hotel. Felt much more personal too.