One year out - no accommodation

[catface5]

Any advice very gratefully received here!

We are one year out from our wedding (taking place in the UK) and looking into reserving some hotel/B&B rooms for our guests to make life easier for them - but we've found out that almost everything in the surrounding area (and even further afield) is almost totally booked up literally a year in advance. There's almost nothing!

We're feeling really stuck and don't know what to do. We're currently exploring block booking hotel rooms in a different town (45 mins drive away is the closest we can get) and putting on transport for guests to and from our wedding venue. We've even considered moving our wedding date, but our venue can't easily accommodate that due to existing Covid rescheduling.

Has anyone experienced this before and can suggest any solutions? Or is warning guests now and getting them to book their own accommodation the way forward?

I am surprised everywhere is booked up that far in advance. Have you tried on line or by telephone? Could it be they they aren't releasing vacancies until they know exactly what is happening with the virus?

How about a large holiday cottage, YHA exclusive booking or similar?

Is there ‘something on’, like Ascot that’s taking up all the hotel rooms?

We used university halls for some of our guests but that only works if you are marrying outside of term time in a university town.

Wow, thanks for the quick replies!

@2tired2bewitty - yup, it's the International Air Tattoo at RAF Fairford. We're getting married in the Cotswolds and all accommodation just seems to have evaporated!

@Alexandernevermind - I think it's a bit of this, some hotels have said they haven't released those dates yet, so keeping fingers crossed.

@SeasonallySnowyPeasant - we will definitely try this!

Accommodation for the air tattoo gets booked up at least a year in advance, not just for the visitors that go there but all the people that work and display there too. If you're not local I'm surprised the venue didn't warn you.

@Summer41 - I know, that's what we're thinking. We're not local and have no idea about air shows so had no idea it was happening. We even asked the venue if there was anything we should know about the date and they didn't mention it (I guess because they wanted our booking). Really frustrating!