To expect wedding guests to book a room at the hotel we've booked for exclusive use not the hotel down the road

[maggiethemagpie]

So we're getting married.... we have booked an exclusive use hotel which means we will be charged for all rooms that are not filled. The wedding is on a Sunday so quite a few guests are going home on the Sunday night and not staying over. That I don't have a problem with. But one couple have booked two nights in the sister hotel to our hotel (so similar prices) as they could not book a room on the Saturday (as it is being used for another wedding). Despite knowing we will have to pay for all the rooms in 'our' hotel they are refusing to move hotels as they don't want the inconvenience.

I probably am BU as I know it was our choice to take the risk of an exclusive, and they can stay wherever they want, but as we will likely not fill more than half of the rooms we are facing a massive bill now (like 1.5k) and it just seems a bit unfair if they're staying in the sister hotel down the road just because they can't /don't want to move on the morning of the wedding.

Really wish I had not booked an exclusive venue now, especially on a Sunday night.

Tbh OP your post to Green really does show you in a poor light after I thought you were taking your own mistake on board quite sensibly, it's refreshing when someone actually admits they're being U!

This reminds me of a nightmare of a wedding we went to a few years ago at a small boutique hotel. We were advised to book a room at the venue. Which we duly did, getting a good deal online.

However we were contacted the week before the wedding by the hotel that bookings were exclusively for wedding guests, we happily advised that's ok we are attending the wedding. But were then told our booking was still not valid as they had now given it to someone else.

It transpired that the exclusive wedding rate offer for bookings was considerably higher and they just did not want us paying the lower room rate we had found online. We couldn't mention it to the bride and groom as didn't want to let them know they and their other guests had been conned in paying an almost double rate. Found another lovely hotel and made sure our trip advisor comment let the hotel know what we thought of them.

Wedding venue hotels have no compunction about ripping off their wedding parties.

Think it's wise only to opt for exclusive use if you are happy to put your guests up gratis.

I started off reading your post thinking you were BU, but as I've read through I've realised you are having more of a rant than anything. It's a rubbish situation, and when your excited and keen to book your wedding a raw chicken buffet seems like a good deal!

You can't tell your guests where to stay.

You can't make them want to stay at your hotel.

You can't make some guest pay more for rooms than others.

But you've clearly expressed that you know this, won't say anything and will love your magical day regardless. Therefore- rant, and when your talking £1800 for a error in judgement- bloody rant away!!!

As for expense for guests, thats a whole other twilight zone on MN. A thread regarding abroad weddings a few months ago resulted in us abroad B&G being selfish, rude expecting people to shell out the money, and eventually that people say they enjoyed the wedding generally didnt and just said that to your face, it had me and DH howling laughing. You need a thick skin to hang around here. There was only 52 people at my wedding and I loved every second- we were up dancing and laughing till the early hours (although MN has informs me everyone had a shit time, whilst calling me rotten behind my back sipping the free bar we put on!) have a great day!

Oh dear what a mess.

The hotel have been totally duplicitous. Since they have a nearby sister venue they could easily have said to anyone booking the night if the wedding "would you prefer our sister venue nearby since we have a wedding on." There was no need to change OP £2k for exclusive use.

But OP has been really unreasonable too. Comments like
seems a bit unfair they can't be bothered to change rooms
we only booked Sunday to save money but it's been a false economy
i really thought people would stay over and take the money off
demonstrate as assumption that you can make your wedding cheaper by passing costs on to guests.

OP, I'm not trying to get at you. I think I'm still annoyed about my sisters Sunday wedding and the insistence that "this is much cheaper!" The problem is that it's cheaper for the bride and from but guests often have to stay two nights instead of one and take a days annual leave.

In this case it hasn't even worked. The hotel are making out like a bandit, OPs paying more than she would have in Saturday and guests are still paying just as much but in the sister hotel to avoid the inconvenience of moving rooms.

What a racket the wedding industry is.

You took a risk and it dudnt pay off. Sunday weddings are a pain and I've declined all of them so far as not worth missing work or school for the next day.

If you knew the rooms needed paying for you should have absorbed the cost as part of the wedding or not done it. Putting the cost of the guests is wrong. Their only costs should be their outfit and a gift if it's a first wedding. If people wanted to stay, the rooms would already have been paid for by you so no cost restriction to them

Exoensive food, venues in the middle of nowhere, hotel stays etc just make it more about what the bride wants and no caring if the guests end up payoff for those choices.

I'm not just having a rant. I genuinely came on here to ask an AIBU question and it was answered, and I agreed with that answer. Isn't that what this board is for? I'll admit, if I had my time over I would have booked a Saturday. Seeing as I don't, what else can I do but make the best of it?

Yes I'm afraid your stance is unreasonable. It's your wedding, not theirs. They can stay where they like, unless you're paying you have no say.

By the sound of it they are probably travelling a way and want to make a weekend of it. Weddings are expensive and often a little dull so I don't blame them!

Silverbirch that is terrible! I hope they lost business from your review. Shocking!

I bet you're wishing you'd never asked OP!
I hope you have a wonderful day and that everything is perfect.
My newlywed cousin and her husband arrived at their honeymoon hotel suite to open the door and find it occupied by another couple, complete strangers! At least that's not a likelihood for you!

Interesting that people are so down on Sunday weddings. I've never been to one, as nearly every wedding I've been to has been a church one and they don't tend to happen on Sunday, but I actually would find it less annoying as a guest than a Friday wedding.

I can't drive, so if I have to travel even a medium distance for a wedding, it's almost always going to involve staying over the night of the wedding, and very often the night before as well, depending on the timing of the ceremony. A Friday wedding might therefore involve two days of annual leave - with a Sunday wedding I could get away with only one.

youandme that's great for you but for teachers who can't take any days off in term time or people with school age children it means you have to drive home on the evening of the wedding. If it's a long way it might not be worth going.

I'm beginning to regret not going for a 'just me, the kids, and our parents' destination wedding in Vegas, Pinkpoppy!

The reason we didn't do that was because we wanted to involve all our family and have a day for them, too... but according to MN I am being selfish in incurring ANY costs for them and the only way to have a wedding is if it does not put out the guests in any way!

So I really am beginning to think maybe I should have just had a tiny micro wedding and not bothered to involve wider family and friends.

Too late now.

At least we have our honeymoon booked a few days after (to the carribean) so if the wedding is a flop we will have that to look forward to.

Although MN will probably now tell me I should have foregone the carribean honeymoon to pay for everyone's rooms! Bracing myself!

We had a Sunday wedding (big catholic church wedding, yes on a Sunday!), not to save money but because our chosen venue, which we absolutely adored, was only available for private hire on a Sunday. We just made sure it was during school summer holidays and sent out invitations with plenty of notice.

We had no complaints, 100% answered yes on the RSVPs, our guests had a wonderful time and our wedding is still talked about very fondly by everyone today.

Don't worry about the Sunday wedding aspect, it's far easier than the trend of weekday weddings, its still a weekend. It's only on Mumsnet you hear people moaning about such things. I'm sure you'll all have a fabulous time. Congratulations on your upcoming marriage, I hope some more guests book rooms. If not, it will be worth it and all forgotten about on the day!

We had a Friday wedding. It was in the summer. Our older relatives are retired and my bridesmaids were teachers so very few people other than friends actually had to take time off work and everyone was happy to, although I wouldn't have minded if they couldn't. We didn't pay for anyone to stay over but we did choose a hotel close to our childhood home so the majority of people didn't have to stay, apart from us!

I don't think it's selfish to have what you want, but I'm afraid the OP did come across a bit bridezilla-y. I appreciate this may be the straw that broke the camels back as wedding planning is ridiculously stressful and there does seem to be an attitude that everyone else is doing you a favour by even attending, which of course is not the case. Anyone who loves you will be delighted to be there.

If someone had booked the hotel I'd assume that it was because they could afford to & that guests staying in the rooms would be doing so at no charge.

The problem here though is that there are no rooms available on the Saturday anyway.

And the people staying over are paying for two nights whether they move or not, so they might as well stay put.

Same here diddl when we booked our wedding we were asked which rate the guests should be charged.
DH and I were astounded when the wedding planner explained there was three 'special' rates for wedding guests, break even, 10% mark up or 25% mark up so we could 'make back' some money from our guests.
We wanted to book all the rooms (there was only 6) so that the few family who travelled a long distance could stay free not to have them pay for our wedding.

I'm sure your wedding won't be a flop op. I remember a few years ago a friend got married and booked the hotel exclusively. We booked a b&b locally as it was half the cost, but if i could have had the time over I'd have booked into the hotel. I don't know if i realised at the time it would end up costing them loads of money. (We'd got married locally and not booked exclusive use, so it hadn't arisen at ours.)

Bloody rip off wedding hotels and their bollocks policies...

My friend is having a gigantic wedding this year which I doubt she can really afford tbh.

The hotel rooms are 200 quid a night and she has booked exclusive use.

Not many/none of her friends or family can afford to pay that per night so, as my whole family is invited and my parents are pretty well off she has informed us that we are expected to stay in the hotel - we'd need 4 rooms to all stay there and my parents want us to have a family weekend and all stay somewhere together. However there's no way they are spending a grand on one night away for the family at this girl's wedding!!

We'll have a lovely weekend together but we'll stay somewhere down the road at half the price.

Takes the royal piss it does.

This explains why two family weddings have got so pissed off at us not wanting to stay in the same hotel as them for their wedding at a similar price.

We thought it rude of them to expect us to pay that much without discussing it with us first and finding out what our max budget was. They thought it rude we didn't stay in the same hotel as the rest of the family.

Its worth saying we had two or three other weddings we'd attended both years, so it soon starts to add up. Ultimately, you either do it as cheaply as you can or you have to turn someone down or get into debt. You are damned either way.

Cue massive family rows.

We got married abroad by ourselves to avoid the stress of family and the cost (both to ourselves and to others).

£150 for a hotel is weekend away not a night and on principle we avoid doing so for any reason as we try and spent our money more wisely as we have a finite amount and other things to budget for. Our own wedding night in a luxury hotel and location cost less for that reason.

OP, I hope you have a nice day and I thank you for explaining just why its causes such major arguments.

I am grateful that every other wedding we've been to, hasn't had such expensive accommodation and we've had friends who have much more realistic expectations of their friends and families priorities/finances.

To be fair, the guests in question tried to book your hotel but it wasn't available in the Saturday night. Presumably there is another wedding on that day.
I think you are catastrophising though op. The wedding won't be a flop because one couple didn't stay in the hotel. Quit the dramatics and get in with enjoying your wedding.

OP I think you're getting a bit of a hard time. While I agree you can't make your guests stay at the venue, the thing is that (most!) people only ever have one wedding and so you make the best decisions you can, and sometimes you get lucky and it's all perfect and sometimes you think, ooops if I could do that again is do it differently.

Personally I think you've got the right attitude : forget it. Might cost a bit extra, but it's done now, no point spoiling the whole day worrying about rooms. Just get on with planning and enjoying the rest of the event with your friends and family.

Your wedding will be lovely, you'll be with friends and family, and the person you love most in the world. There'll be food, dancing, laughter, cake. It's your day. Enjoy it.

Congratulations by the way!

Christ give the OP a break.

It's only E150 - basically the cost of a nice lunch.

The hotel have behaved badly

I don't agree, the hotel gave a price for exclusive use, and the OP chose to accept that price. The hotel gave an example of the bride charging her guests 150 for a room, but the OP could have set the price at any level she chose to. The hotel is a business, afterall, anyone who thinks that hotels are not in it to make money must be in cloud cuckoo land.

OP, I think you now have the right attitude, put the error behind you, suck up the cost, and don't let it spoil your day in any way. What's done is done. I hope you have a wonderful wedding day.

I hope you have a lovely wedding, OP, and I understand wanting to have a bit of a rant here about paying for a half-empty hotel - it's good to get it off your chest here rather than say this to anyone involved in the wedding itself.

However, I do agree with everyone else - and I haven't read all eleven pages, but I think you have accepted this? - that it's unreasonable to expect guests to inconvenience themselves in order to save you money. It would be a pain for them to have to shift themselves halfway through the day.

if you have already had a bit of an argument about them (you said they'd refused), and if you are already having to pay for empty rooms, why not just offer them a room free on the Sunday? You won't be losing any more money than you originally were, and it will be nice to have everyone in the same location. And it will still mean them moving halfway through the day, but this time they will be doing it as a result of a generous gesture on your part, and not a tightfisted one.