Paying for accomodation at the reception

wizzywills

I'd love some advice on how to approach an awkward money dilemma

We're planning our wedding next year and the venue we have fallen in love with insist we have to pay for all the bedrooms if we want exclusive use - which we do. Whilst we love our friends and family dearly and want them there on the day we don't want to pay for them all to stay overnight too. We'd have to pay the venue for the rooms regardless of whether people stay or not, but can't justify adding the full cost to our wedding budget.

How can we reasonably invite guests and then ask them to pay us back for their bed and breakfast? The venue say they can't manage the bookings and payments from guests and then take the money off our final bill as it'd go through their books twice.

Would love some advice on how to position with our guests that they need to pay us directly for their accommodation. It's not really expensive, around £75 for a room B&B but mounts up when its 50 rooms.

I know we don't have to book the venue, but it's definitely the best we've seen and would be a heartbreaker if we had to drop it over this

Thanks, for any positive advice on how to approach the subject with our lovely guests

Torry_Quine

If I as a guest was presented with this I would be very angry. How far is the venue as personally I never stay overnight for a wedding.

Wellyboots6

Couldn't you just put on the invite that you have exclusive use of the venue, therefore accommodation is available at cost. If people want to stay it is on a first come first served basis, to let you know and send you payment via bank transfer etc as you have booked and paid for the rooms.
You may end up having to pay for some empty rooms, buy that is the risk you take to get the venue you want I guess.
Just be open and honest with people, you aren't telling them they have to stay but are giving people the option if they want to and doing the leg work of booking etc for them.

Rosemary7391

It's hard to say whether £75 is a good deal without knowing the location. If I needed to stay overnight for a wedding (a possibility with friends scattered all over) I'd be seeking out the cheapest accommodation locally as I've not got that much spare money on top of travel etc. £75 is probably more than I'd pay. Why don't you pay part for each room and offer the subsidised rooms to your guests? But I wouldn't expect people to pay if they could easily get home for the night, that's simply asking for them to pay for your wedding.

elsien

I guess the first question would be realistically how many people are likely to want to stay over? Because if it's only a few, and you've booked all the rooms you potentially stand to be seriously out of pocket.
Can you sound people out first about how likely they are to want accommodation?

Mrshaworth2b

Sounds pretty easy to me, if you want exclusive access which you say you do then this is what you have to pay for. Regardless of whether you got 50 rooms booked out or not you would have to pay it for the exclusive access. If you can't afford them you can't afford to have the place to yourselves can you?

You are going to struggle to get 50 rooms booked unless you had a massive amount of people coming. The only way you would recoop some money to pay for it would be if you had cash given as a present. But then again you would be relying on 50 of your guests giving £75 which I think is rare at a wedding.

I think you are going to have to lower your expectations or find the money. Asking people to pay for the rooms is cheeky for all the cost that goes into attending a wedding as well.

However you may have close family or friends who may wish to stay over anyway.

BigAunty

Sounds risky - if you can't cover any vacant rooms, you are out of pocket.

As a wedding guest, I wouldn't expect the couple to fund my accommodation (though I did pay for my aunties and MIL at mine), and it can be really convenient to stay at the same place as the reception.

I have been offered accommodation at a wedding venue before, paying the hotel directly when certain rooms were held for the couple (not the whole venue, mind).

Can't see why the venue can't manage to accept payment directly from the guests. I do wonder whether it's more about maximising revenue and cutting down on risk and admin by ensuring that they get all rooms paid for up front.

Perhaps they've experienced time wasters or loss of income in the past by couple's who have booked the venue then only half filled it, meaning a potentially loss of a couple of grand per wedding.

Accept the risk or find another venue. I don't think guests will feel offended at paying for their accommodation via you rather than the hotel (though it is a lot of admin for you) but then again, they may prefer something much cheaper in the area so where would that leave you if you can't fill it - perhaps having to pay hundreds, if not thousands to the hotel for empty rooms and souring the event for you.

Why not ask on the Wedding forum?

FBaby

Only you will know how your friends/family would react to that request. Like many, I would most likely decline the invit if that was a requirement. I would maybe do it for my sister if she asked before, and explained why it meant so much to her, and I didn't feel she was being unreasonable, but as a whole I do find the concept of expecting invitees to spend more money then they would expect to just to allow you to have the top of the range wedding you fantasize about not of very good taste.

tomtontom

£75 is not expensive for a hotel stay, but when you add on gift, outfit, travel etc it becomes very expensive.

I'd be choosing a different venue, it's a massive amount for you to pay if people don't want to pay/ stay.

LannieDuck

I've been invited to a wedding before where there were x number of rooms available at the venue for £xx - let the bride / groom know asap if you'd like one. It worked just fine - I always find it more convenient to have a room in the same place as the event (no need for taxis etc), but people who wanted to find somewhere cheaper were welcome to do so.

Only risk (as PPs have said) is that you may not get all 50 rooms filled.

Dark_elf

I would be annoyed to be expected to pay £75 to attend a wedding.

Don't book any rooms apart from your own. Send invites out as early as possible. Say rooms are limited and available on a first come first served basis. They may book all the rooms or they may book three. Worst case scenario = there may be strangers at your hotel - boo hoo. It's not as if they will crash your wedding .