anyone else have a problem with people wanting to book last min.?

[mrullo]

I am getting married in Oct. And yes I understand it is a long time away. But I feel this may become a problem in the future. When I talk to people about booking everyone wants to wait last min. People think off season nothing will get sold out. But I already know that with destination weddings getting increasingly popular there was only two days in my week with ceremonies not already booked...

Also, My travel company is offering me 2 free seats for every 16 people booked. If everyone books on there own I will be screwed out of this deal.

 

What did you ladies do??

 

Thanks Melissa

[SusieQ]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrullo I am getting married in Oct. And yes I understand it is a long time away. But I feel this may become a problem in the future. When I talk to people about booking everyone wants to wait last min. People think off season nothing will get sold out. But I already know that with destination weddings getting increasingly popular there was only two days in my week with ceremonies not already booked... Also, My travel company is offering me 2 free seats for every 16 people booked. If everyone books on there own I will be screwed out of this deal. What did you ladies do?? Thanks Melissa

Hi Melissa,
I totally hear where your coming from... I had gotten prices confirmed and held for a really decent price. I sent the invites and quote out in July and people had until Oct 31 to book... Well my brother who has never travel anywhere.. was at a summer party here at my house in August and was telling people not to book until Jan because they were getting ripped off... I had to take him aside a explain that if no one booked until last minute I could not plan a wedding... He didn't get it!!! Thought I was what I was asking people to do was ashameful on my part.... (Honey there will be these people in your group and you can not change that). Yeah we all have stupid people lol!!!
With that said... everyone that went booked Oct.31 or sooner "except of course my brother)... Well darling he booked Jan 25th and I was getting married Feb 2... Ok here is your arguement for people... I got the confirmed price for a week all inclusive 5star $1300.00 per person. My brother searched the internet day and night for two months and ended up paying $2200.00. He got a really crappy travel time and had to come a day early and leave a day early.. He was in a totally different section of the resort, 20 minute walk from the group.
Last minute works when you don't care where your going and are extremely flexible on the dates and travel time... Hang in there babe... There will be stupid people...

[amygirl1169]

I'm going through a similar thing... but with just under 2 months to go, everyone is finally coming around (although we had a solid 26 booked last summer) and now I've already ordered all of my mugs and such and some people just want receive one!

 

The price went down a little bit one week and I bunch of people booked, but now it's back up to what we paid, so no big variations in price.

[loua4]

Yes!!!! I am having this problem too. I am getting married in November, and people have already said that my price is way to much but we booked at a 5 star Riu resort in Bahamas, and got a 3 day price for a week ($1600.00) I was so excited til now when so many people are telling me that we are crazy, that is way to much and they are going to book last min as well. I even have a cousin who was married at a Riu and knows the whole drill and they are booking last min.

So What I have been trying to do is stay calm..... I know that if they dont book with us they will get rooms that are not the same quality and in another part of the resort..... but I just have to get my self to deal. At least i know there are girls out there dealing with the same thing. and that is so comforting.

Thanks for posting this.

[AlexsBride]

I am hoping this will not become a problem with my group, but already a couple people have mentioned that a "last minute price would be better" I am simply going to tell them that if they want to be for sure considered a part of the wedding group, they need to book with us. This will save them from not booking until last minute and being sent to a diff. resort or even worse, not being there on the right day. And I hear you on the free seats with the group bookings! I want my free seat too!

 

I think with Feb, it won't be as much of a problem though. I checked around this month for last minute rates and the cheapest I saw was maybe $150 cheaper than the group rate I am hoping to get so hopefully people will not take the chance for 150.

[Thomasjsgirl]

Good advice! It's best to plan for a few extras though -- I had a few wedding crashers, so thank goodness I had purchased enough supplies to have extra OOT bags, etc. The risks are real though, particularly since DW are becoming increasingly popular. Remind these bargain-hunters that we're not talking about a group vacation, we're talking about a wedding that requires advance planning and that you need to know who is coming well beforehand.

 

After all that, if they still want to book last minute, let the chips fall where they may!

[luciel2820]

I feel the same way as every one else does but I am not gonna stress with anyone. I simply told everyone, this is the wedding day, and this site has great prices, book it now before it goes back up. If they end up paying way more thats their problems. The reason I am doing a DW is so I dont have to worry about anyone else. I am not getting a TA because I will only have about 10 people flying from here and are not only going to stay at the resort but are also going to visit family and come back from another airport while in the DR.

So unless its really important for the ones who havent booked to be there, Im not going to stress it.

[bnbrmy]

well I'm not having the exact problem, but my issue is that we are on an almost non-existant budget at this time, due to bills and wedding stuff. We have only invited 5 people. Nobody else has been invited by us. Now since we are only inviting the small amount of people, we are taking them to do a few tourist things, at our cost. Also the price for the meals at the reception is outragious, also at our cost. Now I have people telling me what fun they are going to have when they fly down and I'm like WTF??! I can't afford any more people, I hate to be nasty but I don't have that kind of money, we are paying for 4 fights, the cost of the wedding, attire, and things that we will be doing there, I can't add on any more people. Luckily for me, the people who said that they are going can't really afford to do much of anything, I hate to be mean but I'm hoping they don't show. It kind o pissed me off that they just assumed they were invited and ...I don't know, but I'm like you, I have a feeling this is going to stress me out the closer we get to our wedding date.

[mbarnes04]

i would give them a firm deadline in bold and all caps... mabye like a reminder letter. all rsvps MUST be received by XXX to attend wedding celebration. sorry, we can't make exceptions. maybe your travel agency will price match?

[KittenHeart]

Yeah, at least half or more of my guests have booked in the last month and I'm just over 2 months away from my wedding in May. I remember last year stressing a lot over this and it doesn't matter how much you stress, people will still procrastinate.

 

Don't stress, just know people procrastinate and sometimes there's nothing you can do about it. Just keep positive and keep up with pricing and notfiy guests of cheaper rates etc.