My D and her fiancé took care of lining up the block of hotel rooms near their venue in NYC. They’ve done everything on their own and so I have no advice to give. In fact, I better get going and reserve my own room! 
S and DIL booked a block of rooms at Hyatt Place. $119/night. We have 15 rooms used out of a block of 20. Hotel is 10 minutes from wedding site, 30 mins from reception. Most friends are local, out-of-town guests are relatives.
We are 7 days away from the wedding. Chair rental salesperson convinced B/G to get a canopy (thank you, thank you, thank you). I have spent 8 months begging for this as the wedding is out in bright Michigan sun. Extended forecast is calling for 81 degrees, full sun, and humid. The rain plan is to have a tent on reserve, but the get-ready building is 100 feet away from where the tent would be. Does not seem to concern the happy couple! Just letting that one ride.
Things are falling into place and I have spent a lot of time tying together many loose ends for them. Bride’s mom is frail with CHF and not able to do much. This is not a burden for me as I enjoy organizing and running events, but I am amazed how much they thought these things just sort themselves out!
In December, S thanked me for not interfering and trying to run the show. I told him we had 8 months to go…and see how I was in May. Well, that was about when they figured out that there was so much to do and they were going to need some help! The details all worked out and I go into this last week pretty relaxed.
It seems to be about a 20 percent discount from the rack rate. The nice thing is that, with both hotels, there aren’t many strings. We have to release any unbooked rooms 3-4 weeks ahead of time. They’ve got 20-some rooms blocked off for us at each hotel and, from now until then, folks can book and get the discounted rate.
One thing I learned at my older girls’ weddings was that some people don’t know how to book to get the discount. You have to have a code, which is usually posted on the wedding website, or else phone the hotel and specifically mention the wedding. Some people may want to use points, or have a better discount (military or corporate rate); some people may not want to stay at the hotels we picked.
Just saw nottelling’s reply. We are getting about 20% off each room. They booked the block last January. They also arranged for shuttle transportation to and from hotel/wedding/reception if guests want or need it.
I think they had no minimum (maybe 10–I have 4), but the block rates were good up to 3 weeks before the wedding and then the remaining rooms were released and the rate was no longer offered.
Very helpful. Thanks.
Late to the party here…I am also not a 2016 wedding parent. 
My daughter just got engaged and it is going to be a 2018 wedding, and I am already in the planning mode.
I think we may need to do a tent, fully enclosed, vaulted tent, because where she wants to have the wedding doesn’t have a venue she likes that could hold 200 people.
I am wondering if anyone here has done it and what to consider. I am of course worried about rain (raised floor), wind (fully secured to the ground), temperature (AC for inside the tent).
Regarding blocks of rooms - I went with S to the hotel when he arranged for a block for his June 2016 wedding. 20% discount sound about right although if people booked early enough they were given priority for some of the rooms with the nicer views. Initially we were told they would hold the block until one month before the wedding - they actually ended up extending that another week or two. The hotel did offer a free shuttle to the reception site (and back) which was nice. People booked by mentioning the either of the couple’s name at registration.
@oldfort…what very happy news!!! <:-P
Congrats @oldfort !
I’m another 2017 (July) MOB and glad to see we 2017er’s aren’t being kicked off the 2016 thread! I have been lurking for a bit and taking notes about the unexpected things to expect.
Couple of questions:
This may have been discussed before (I didn’t start from the beginning), but how are people (the couple or the parents) handling the issue of those who assume they’ll be invited when in fact, they won’t? There are many people who D would be happy to have if there there were unlimited space and money. But sadly, we do not have these things. She posted her proposal pics on facebook along with the engagement announcement and has had a few comments like “That’s great, I can’t wait to come to your wedding! Let’s get together soon.” Any help??
Are lots of couples doing proposal pics? The concept seems weird to me, as a proposal is so personal. D and her fiance had one of her bridesmaids (a good amateur photog) come along as they hiked on the trail where they’d first met and he proposed. The pictures are great and I’m glad to have them. I’m not sure how common this is.
Is anyone else’s kid doing an unusual or alternative sort of wedding? I know that’s kind of vague, but I’m hesitant to put down any description of D’s wedding for fear of being immediately reported to the “tacky wedding things” thread. I need some back-up here!
I’ve got a HS junior, HS senior and now a D getting married next summer. I’m glad CC threads can give me support for all three, which just may save my sanity (what remains). 8-}
Congrats Snoozn! I’m sure you’ll get lots of feedback here…all we need is a wedding to talk about and everyone joins in!
First of all, shame of those saying out loud they assume they are invited! A wedding might be for 400 guests, it might be for 40 - or less - all are fine and up to the bride/groom/families! I suppose on FB your D could make a comment like, “we will be excited to share our wedding happenings with everyone on FB!” or something like that - so, sort of now fully answer the question but imply - that not everyone will be invited!
My S and DIL (married June 2016) did not do “official” engagment or proposal pics. S did request that our families be NEAR the proposal site so we saw them very soon after he popped the question and took some spontaneous pictures which are sincere and emotion filled and adorable - but that was it. Their choice and something they did not want to spend extra $$ on.
Alternative wedding? Now you have us curious! No matter what your wedding setting/plans are, there will always be a “critic” - you should feel free to share! The closest our S’s wedding came to being unusual/alternative was that the reception venue was at our local train station - but in an area no longer used for the daily public. It was cool though but required us to hire most things out ourselves.
I actually did raise this a while back as it has been an ongoing issue with certain relatives. And I’m not sure there is a way to deal with it. My kids did not make the mistake of posting wedding plans or save the date on Facebook – but obviously the extended family was told fairly early on of the engagement – I think it would be quite rude to fail to mention it to aunts and uncles and cousins. The information that it is a “small” wedding has been conveyed… but apparently doesn’t solve the problem.
Traditionally, proper etiquette involved sending out wedding announcements to the uninvited on or after the day of the wedding – but my DD is uncomfortable with that, as it seems like too much of a solicitation for a gift. I feel the same way-- especially after learning that the great-aunt whose nose is out of joint because of lack of an invitation told the grandmother that if she didn’t get an invitation, she wouldn’t be sending a check.
So at this point I think it’s just a matter the kids having made their choices, sent out the invitations to the people they want invited, and not worrying about things beyond that. If someone outside of immediate family (siblings, parents) is presumptuous enough to assume that they have a right to an invitation – that’s their problem, not something the happy couple needs to fix.
My DD also ran into that problem with co-workers. Sometimes the lines can get fuzzy there as to who is a “friend”, especially if there is some casual socializing like going out for drinks after work. And of course everyone at the workplace knows about the wedding. My DD decided her personal test was to ask herself whether the coworker had been to her house to socialize in the past.
Anyway… DD’s wedding is less than 2 weeks away! Will report back after the event.
I think it’s always difficult to deal with the desire to talk about wedding plans and the iffiness of doing so with people who will not be invited, especially those who won’t be invited but think they might be.
On the other hand, people really should not assume that they are invited, and really, really should not make public statements about their expectation!
Honestly, I think your D would be better off keeping the whole thing off FB until afterwards, lest she end up with friends who are hurt not to be included when others clearly are.
As long as she isn’t expecting her guests to pay for their food and drink, she’s probably safe. 
(Of course, there’s nothing at all wrong with a potluck wedding, either!)
Guess I get to join the thread! Son got engaged last night to girlfriend who is beautiful inside and out! So happy!
Congratulations! We’ll be awaiting details!!
Congratulations to @gouf78 and other 2017 wedding parents! I think it’s really hard if you have a wide circle of friends and many relatives knowing who to invite and who not to. My Aunt is expecting an invitation but she’s a widow in her late 80’s and lives two hours away. That means we would have to invite my cousin (her son) and his wife - none of whom our daughter feels especially close to. If we invite them, I would feel the need to invite a couple of other first cousins that I’m closer with but we weren’t invited to their kids weddings so they didn’t make the list anyway. Not that we don’t like each other, just that our kids don’t know each other that well.
I think people that haven’t been involved in a wedding in the last decade or two have no idea of the per plate expense. My wedding was fairly inexpensive and my husband and I didn’t have nearly as many friends as my daughter does. Most of the people that attended our wedding were relatives. It’s just a different situation now.
The elderly aunt (or other elderly senior relative or friend) is the one area where a “plus one” on the invitation is useful. Or, even better, invite your aunt (if your daughter wants to invite her) and then call her and tell her that she’s welcome to invite a companion – whether it is her son or someone else – to make the travel possible. That way, you aren’t actually extending invitations to the cousin level, but you are making sure she can comfortably attend. Or, just send her an invitation, even though it is unlikely she’ll be able to attend. Not inviting her at all would be my last choice.
I think the point is that that no one should have to feel obligated to invite someone to an event they are hosting, especially an out-of-town relative who has not had much involvement in the lives of the couple getting married. Generally making room for one guest - or two (with a plus one invitation) – means that someone else cannot be invited — unless the couple wants to act like an airline and assume the risk of over-booking by inviting more people than they have capacity for. And it is simply rude for anyone to expect an invitation simply because they are a blood relative. It doesn’t matter if it’s a wedding or anything else - it’s just presumptuous for someone in that position to assume or expect an invitation is coming their way.
Unless you are able to invite absolutely everyone, there will be someone upset about not being invited.We had it happen with one cousin. I just let it go - can’t please everyone.
March 2017 wedding; I am just now starting to take some interest in some details as we just met the fiance’s family about six weeks ago. I was NOT going to even look for a dress until January or so. Wedding will take place outdoors in the Santa Ynez wine valley, with reception indoors. D has been very, very lenient in what people wear to the point where she had no preference as to whether I wore a long gown or short. But in July, other daughter was home and we made a trip into the city for BHLDN, and for fun I tried on dresses. The first dress I tried on, I bought, even after trying on another 4-5 dresses there. It just seemed so right, and we FaceTimed engaged daughter to show her, and she loved it (whew… that was almost too easy).
Anyway, that’s the good stuff. As far as the bad stuff goes, we had a crisis this week - the day of her wedding, there’s a century bike ride with 3,000 participants in the area. Ruh, roh! I have to say I was a little upset that the venue never mentioned this to her (it’s not the first time this bike ride has taken place). Daughter had enlisted a service to locate blocks of rooms for her, and they informed her only two hotels in the are will be releasing blocks of rooms for that weekend. All other hotels will not do so due to the big bike event. So she had to start considering hotels in Santa Barbara (which is about 30-40 minutes away), which was going to increase her transportation fee enormously, to around $1800 for the night! She can block off up to ten rooms at each of the two hotels in the area, but anything over ten rooms, she runs the risk of incurring charges for rooms not used. And unfortunately, both of these hotels are about the same price - $250/night, and require a two-night minimum. So D feels like that’s an undo burden on her guests who may not have that money to spend, especially given it’s sort of a destination wedding (we live in Illinois, my family is from Texas, her attendants are scattered across the country and fiance’s family is from up near Sacramento). But today she located a ‘national’ transportation company that can do a Santa Barbara run, with a stop at the hotels around Santa Ynez for about a third of the price of the original transportation company. I asked her what kind of reviews they had, and she replied, “Mom, you know every time you ask me one of these questions, my blood pressure goes up just a little.” So I need to find a fine line between offering guidance and letting her figure things out (she’s already been given a budget and it’s up to her to make it work).
Interesting story, though. The way she found out about the bike race was, she sent out save-the-dates a couple of weeks ago, and one of her cousins from Texas messaged her saying, “Guess what? I’m already going to be in the Buellton area that weekend, but for a bike race. You should know it registers 3000 riders, so you might want to move quickly on accommodations.” So if not for my niece, we still wouldn’t know - and that bugs me about the venue - they should have told D. She split up her invitation list and she, I and her fiance’s stepmom all emailed everyone to let them know, if they have any inking of attending, they might want to secure accommodations now. H and I, on the other hand, immediately prioritized finding a VRBO that is GORGEOUS, and big (6600 sf and on 20 acres) for six nights! We will host several of the female attendants so we have them all in one place for several days before the wedding to help out. The ‘ranch’ has a swimming pool, hot tub, four large bedrooms and a library with doors that close and a Murphy bed. I just signed the DocuSign with them tonight. It is owned by one of the local wineries, and we will use their catering service to provide a brunch the day after the wedding at our rental. I, along with her step-mother-in-law to be are meeting up with her in October to scout the area for other things. But this whole bike ride and accommodation glitch is a bit concerning. I did confirm that we will not have any problems getting from our house to the venue that afternoon - the race does not completely close the roads they are on, but it will slow traffic down. I’m wondering what other special considerations we need to deal with due to this bike race. We texted quite a bit last night and today, and she seems to be more at peace that she can find an alternative transportation company that doesn’t charge and arm and a leg.
Other daughter has booked a room at a nice restaurant in our area during the Christmas holiday for a bridal luncheon since it’s the only time they’ll both be home before the wedding. It’ll be small, maybe a dozen people.
I just hope, hope, hope that there are no last-minute surprises on the wedding day due to the bike race because we didn’t think of them.