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.

Can you just block book them and get the venue to handle taking payment for the rooms as others have suggested? Otherwise you will spend months in the run up to your wedding sorting out the rooms. I had a venue with ten rooms, just for close family and even so it was a nightmare. I would not do it again.

From experience I wouldn't recommend trying to sort out people's accommodation, send them the details and let them get on with it.

Re the cottages, how are you thinking about taking payment for them? If they are paying direct fine but if not you may find yourself managing a spreadsheet and chasing people up.

Group bookings can be made at Premier Inn etc, you can give booking reference in invite for people to call and take over a room, giving their credit card number, then a month before the rooms get released if not taken over. However prepare to be frustrated when people don't and contact you a week before not having booked anywhere.

I bought the booze for our wedding, around Easter and bank holidays supermarkets do great deals. I got champagne for £8 a bottle. Red wine 3 for £11.50 (normal retail £8.99 per bottle), a local pub put us in touch with a company for draught beers. Shop around.

Would your guests be staying in shared cottages or in their own rooms. I wouldn't want to share with other guests I may had never met before.

What would be the plan for breakfast the morning after?

Your wedding sounds fab.

Any wedding where the bride is spending more time thinking about how to make her guests have a nice time rather than what SHE wants is a good one IME!

Also I am English and the one thing I hate at weddings is pay bars, I'd rather eat a nice sarnie off a paper plate on a deck chair and not have to buy a drink! I think it is really 'off' when people waste money on 'favours' (that no one wants), flowers, expensive cars etc but then make their guests buy their own drinks.

Free drinks = happy people

I would allocate the 64 spots, and have two different kinds of invitation insert.

64 people:
We are providing cottage accommodation for you at the venue and look forward to sharing our day with you. If you do not wish to stay at the venue, please let us know so that we can offer the room to somebody else.

Other people:
We are enclosing a list of nearby hotels.

If any cottage slots become available, contact non-cottage people informally and offer it around.

Creamy Already thought of (I am now a planner so plan everything to the last minute detail ): DP's friends from abroad are all friends themselves and their children play with each other - they should fill up some of the cottages (two I think). I have friends coming from down south who will take another and we all used to live together. And I have a severely disabled relative with a spouse, carer and immediate other relatives who are coming and we have all holidayed together before, so I was thinking they would share the last. All other rooms are in the big house.

One of the draws for this venue is that they provide a fully catered breakfast for £10/head if you order it - that's one catering thing we will buy in the morning after. Otherwise I was going to let everyone bring anything else additional they want and possibly bulk-buy pizzas for the night before. I am anticipating needing help with decorating and food so free accommodation was mostly in expectation of help (we are very close families so I know, based on experience, 80% of the people we are inviting will insist on helping if they are there).

Sometime between now and then I need to wangle a cash and carry card from somewhere...

fay I'm so glad to hear you did something similar and it worked well :)

Eggwhite, is your venue 'up North'?

Ooohh that all sounds good, like a three Wedding,festival fiesta. It's a refreshing change from all the bridezilla stories you hear about.

Set aside enough accommodation for the non-English speakers and people with additional needs and say that the rest are available on a first come first served basis. Include info on other options too.

Good luck with it all - DH and I had a DIY wedding (he and and best man both chefs) - it was fab. Wouldn't do it any other way even if we won they lottery! .

Wow. Have just discovered on the Internet that there is such a thing as a 'Do Not Play' list that the bride and groom enforce at weddings Who has the time to think of one of those?!

Thanks Dum and thanks everyone for your good wishes :) I am so excited, both in an 'It's Christmas!' way but also in a more calm, deep happiness way. It's bizarre. Every time I think about it I smile.

We are meant to be keeping it quiet for the moment as DP wants to do some kind of proper proposal thing but I had to tell my sister this morning so that I had someone to gossip with. She's also really excited.

We had similar for our wedding - we had a country house that slept 70, and 100 guests.

We chose to give rooms to friends of our age, as we wanted a big sleepover and late late dancing, while older relatives would be more comfortable in a quiet hotel nearby.

We put a separate card in with invites for those staying, explaining that we had allocated them a room and to let us know ASAP if they didn't want it. We also put a web address on all Invites for more info, and explained on there that some guests would be staying they know who they are, and that it would be noisy/late etc. no-one minded!

OP do think this all thriugh carefully! Bear in mind that if the accommodation for 64 people is all in separate cottages sleeping 4,6 or 8 people, bear in mind you might not be able to accommodate 64 people because some people will be couples, families of 3, 5 etc so there will be some empty spaces. For example a party of 5 plus a single adult might not want to share a 6-person cottage! And you can't put two couples who dont know each other into a 4 person cottage.