Did you give your guests a deadline to book?

FI and I have blocked off some rooms at our resort. We need to release any unnecessary rooms by a certain date.

We would like an rsvp date of 8/15/09 and also want people to at least put a deposit on their room down by this date so we know who will be going and if we need to release any rooms or block off more.

As anyone else done this? How do you tell your guests to book without being pushy Can i ask this on the rsvp card like "please rsvp/book by..." or will is that not proper etiquette?

Thanks

I don't see any problem with that.

I think thats pretty common. With booking for our wedding we only had so long for people to book and get the group rate we had received. If they booked after the deadline they would just get whatever rate was available. It wasnt so much our choice as it was the travel agent/carrier but I was honestly happy that it happened like that! We had 60 people put down a deposit in those three weeks, and now we have some stragglers that will still come and book but its nice to know sooner than later who is coming to your wedding.

For sure put an RSVP or book by date on all of your invites and such...also i would put that date about 2 weeks ahead of what the date really is that they have to book their rooms by, just to give yourself a sort of cushion....

but be warned we had people book 5 days before we left!!!!!!!!!!! argh...you can read all about my frustration here...not trying to scare you...just give you a heads up!

http://bestdestinationwedding.com/forum/t40149

We sent out our Save The Dates with a due date of December 1st 2008 for our August 5, 2009 wedding.. that is when our travel agent needed to have them booked to secure everyone's rates AND that is exactly what we said. We also noted on our wedding website (which was referenced on our invites) that if you do not book by December 1st, 2008 we cannot guarantee that they will be able to get a room and we can also not guarantee their rate (basically without saying it... but that they are "on their own" if they don't book by the deadline).

We had 0 problems with anyone booking... everyone booked by the due date besides 2 people and they made their own arrangements at a slightly higher cost with our TA. No one complained or had any problems with it.

Thanks everyone! I wasn't sure how to let people know that we are setting a deadline.

My travel agent didn't give me a deadline on the rates so I assume the rates for my room block are effective until my wedding...maybe i should double check on that!

Good to hear everyone's thoughts! We wanted to know early on as well just for budget reasons. We're trying to figure out if we can do a cocktail hour and what not and it will totally depend on how many people are coming.

We figured it was totally appropriate to give an RSVP book date.

We sent out our save the dates in January with all of the booking information. We sent out our invitations a few weeks ago with a June 1st RSVp date. So far 24 people have booked, but mostly friends. Some of our family and bridal party have not even booked. All they need to do is put $150 deposit and the rest is due the end of August. So we will see. Our wedding isn't until October, but I also wanted to get numbers, so we can plan a rehearsal/ welcome dinner or not. Depending on the number of people.