Who is BU? re wedding guests

[biser]

Wedding in country house hotel. Naice but not amazingly so.

How much would you, as a guest, be prepared to pay for a double room inc breakfast before you start to suspect "woah, I'm being ripped off to subsidise their costs".

That's effectively what's happening

No it’s not. That’s a guess.

Not sure where you’ve got it from that the b&g are demanding they are bought presents or that there are no drinks provided.

And if they did do that, and I didn’t want to go, I wouldn’t go. No frothing, spitting, fuming. Just say “no thank you” and get on with my life.

But £110 a night for a weekend country hotel sounds reasonable (given that prices go up at the weekend for most hotels)

That price sounds very reasonable to me.
Are you paying for your daughters wedding?

@GreenTulips is that actually what's happening though? I understood from OP that a) all hotel rooms need filled b) the hotel will charge a bit, but not much, more than the weekday rates for rooms (which let's face it is entirely normal) and c) the profit from the rooms would go to the hotel - not come off the B and G's bill with the result that if all rooms are filled B and G's bill will be £X and if not all rooms are filled the bill will be £X plus the cost of the unfilled rooms.

Have i missed something?

OP honestly there's a lot of hysteria on MN. about weddings but all you and your family need to do is say to guests that they are welcome but by no means obligated to stay at the hotel and that if they wish to do so please contact the hotel directly for costs and payment, as room bookings are separate to and exclusive of the wedding reception. I'm sure you can word it more elegantly but put something like that on the info card that accompanies the invites. If you do this, as well as indicate a list of local b n bs and travel lodges i assure you people will do what suits them best without any ill feeling towards the wedding party. If the 'wedding tax' imposed by the hotel is relatively modest and there's no 2 night minimum i guarantee you your family will fill the rooms easily with merry makers who will be thrilled not to have to arse around with taxis and have somewhere to stash their after party booze.

So what if you are parents of the bride. It doesn't make you look like CF.
Weddings in country hotels are expensive. I paid £150 to stay at my sister's wedding last year. That's a normal price and it was my choice to pay that.

Yanbu to worry about the exclusive use and charging if under capacity, but only really get a say if you are paying for the venue imo.

We told B&G how much we could contribute. No strings attached although of course we suggested names for the guestlist but the numbers for Breakfast and Evening-Do worked out as fairly average i.e. what most venue are offering.
It worked out that our contribution is about 50% of all costs; the other 50% is coming from B&G. Coincidentally, venue is about 50% of all costs.

I think it's hard to judge rates without know location want to other county houses near the venue charge?

Then are there cheaper alternatives nearby? And what will the venue do if not all rooms are booked?

Personally I would save money on the room and stay in a travelodge if I had the option so they need to be realistic will enough guests pay to stay?

I do not think the room rate is excessive. However the trend towards having weddings at a venue which requires friends and family to stay overnight and the assumption that it is now reasonable for guests to pay upwards of £150 each (at a conservative estimate) to attend is unreasonable. The best weddings that I have attended have been on a budget, local to B&G and incredibly personal as a result. Country hotels/castles all blend into one and build a sense of resentment because so much expense and effort is required of guests so the B&G get their day.

Tbh I’d look at what else was on offer locally and balance taxi : convenience vs cost of staying in the wedding hotel. Most of the time ime it’s not worth the extra to stay at the venue and quite frankly the idea of a reception part 2 when id just want to go home puts me off!

Ps. I had a friend who did the whole ‘rent out the house and sell the rooms back’ cheeky AF. And you had to stay 2 nights. I didn’t and was given the cold shoulder as a result - defintely CF behaviour.

OP, are there other, cheaper places to stay nearby?

Local-ish places with good ratings come at a range of prices, from about £70 to £155.

In my experience it is extremely rare for a hotel to have weekend rates cheaper than their weekday rates.

Where are you getting your information from that it is usually cheaper at weekends?

Do you know for sure they are getting a£7k wedding for £6k? A lot of your concerns seem to be supposition.

From what o can see there's nothing that anyone can say is being a CF.

I think you need to back off a bit,

The b&g need to ask what happens if rooms not all sold and also is the hotel expecting everyone to stay 2 nights? And again what if everyone only stays one night - b&g could end up paying for a lot of empty rooms.

Everyone should instead plan their wedding according to the proximity of the nearest premier inn and train station?

If not doing so is going to put undue financial pressure on people you're supposed to like enough to have at and who will feel obliged to attend your wedding, then yes.

b&g could end up paying for a lot of empty rooms.

Yup. Have read many a post from B&Gs panicking because they can't cover the cost of the unoccupied rooms.

You say no strings attached but then also state that your contribution is the same price as the venue. I think you need to back off. It's not your wedding.

Ok, so I think it's really crucial to understand the range of local options, quality / price and where the 'at venue' rooms fit in to this picture. Then - assuming the B&G would have to cover costs of empty rooms - apply the laws of supply and demand (taking account of the convenience of being at the venue) to confirm or adjust the venue's room rates to ensure they are full.

So, if the £70 option is really convenient and ok quality, you may need to subsidise the venue rooms enough that people chose those instead (e.g. price at £90) but, if the cheaper places incur high taxi fees and are not so nice, or have limited availability, you can stick with £110 and should fill the venue rooms.

But mostly, it just sounds like you're a bit out of date on what hotels cost, whereas other people won't be at all shocked at £110 for a double room at the venue.

" - Everyone should instead plan their wedding according to the proximity of the nearest premier inn and train station?

• If not doing so is going to put undue financial pressure on people you're supposed to like enough to have at and who will feel obliged to attend your wedding, then yes."

@iBiscuit, are you for real or are you actually that entitled?

I am from up North, my husband is Dutch and we live in London, as do a substantial portion of the guests we had at our wedding. Should we have married in a Formule 1 road motel just outside of Calais, to ensure it was broadly equidistant for all guests and cheap as possible for them to attend?

Or are we rude because we had the wedding we wanted, whilst accepting that some guests would make it, and some would not?

A close relative of mine wanted to book a wedding at a fancy little country wedding hotel- but they had to book the whole hotel, including a fair number of rooms each costing £500-£1000 for one night.

At that price, I'd be expecting Cliveden or somewhere and the Pope himself to be conducting the ceremony. I've never spent more than £500 on a holiday, never mind an overnight at a wedding!

If it was somewhere I fancied staying, I'd be happy to pay up to about £150 for the room and breakfast, maybe £180 if it was really fab. But if it wasn't, £50 would be a bit steep.

We'd go in our motorhome and park up in a nearby layby or something, which would please DP as he's a skinflint.

Ok so for me if I could get a £70 room with a reasonable taxi fare then I would pick that over the £150. Personally I would always pick the cheapest option. If I want to pay for an expensive weekend away I would want to pick the location hotel ect.

However I wouldn't think it was cheeky if the B&G picked a venue where the rooms were that expensive. You only pass into cheeky/rude territory I think if you don't give guests a choice (they have to stay in the room and pay or not go). So they definitely need to be either completely sure they will have full occupancy, or be ok with the penalty if they don't. Quite often that is the price of the empty rooms.

Local weekend rate plus taxi would be the ceiling for me.

We looked at getting married in a country house (non-hotel) and were going to price at about £50/person/night but eventually went for a non-hotel venue in a local town. Well local to us but not to most of our friends!

110 for a room is not excessive (although obviously it depends how nice the place is). It's normal for weekend prices to be more. Some guests probably would stay there at that price (again, depends on the guests - are their friends in their 30s or are they students, are the family poor or average?).

But it's unreasonable to try to insist that guests pay to stay there. It should be a suggestion only along with other cheaper options in the area.

Ideally, weddings should only take place at venues that allow camping or in walking distance of a campsite.