Monday, April 15, 2013

Hotels: the new source of wedding stress

When the Beau and I decided to get married in Kitchener, we knew we'd need hotel rooms for our guests. While we both have family in the Kitchener area, the majority of our guests will be traveling from out-of-town so we have always planned on setting aside a block of rooms. Our reception site is close to a number of hotels so we figured we'd have our pick of them and would be able to go with the best rate.

And then we discovered there is a curling qualification tournament in Kitchener the weekend of our wedding.  And not just any qualification tournament: the winners will compete for a chance to represent Canada at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games.

What this means is the hotels near our reception venue that we were counting on are now full. One hotel has 5 rooms left; another has 8. So what became a wealth of choice has now become rather dire.

The other catch? Most hotels will only set aside 10-15 rooms. Sure, once those are filled they will set aside more, but our invitations aren't going out for a couple more months so by the time our guests know about the rooms available, they may be all that's available.

Gak.

I know that it's not our responsibility to make sure that all of our guests have somewhere to stay but with 180 people being invited (we're estimating 160 will come) that could mean up to 80 rooms.

I think we've hit upon a solution that will involve two hotels but the details still need to be confirmed. But if the details don't work out in our favour, I'm going to be pretty stressed. I'm trying to find what wedding etiquette says about how many rooms should be set aside. So far, no firm answer but I'm trying for about 70 rooms. If I can get that I'll sleep much easier.

I'll also be both cursing and cheering our Olympic curling teams in Sochi.

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