The Hotel Cock Block

“Blocking a hotel rooms is a great way to help guests find a reasonably priced and convenient place to stay near your wedding activities! Simply follow these easy steps to look into blocking your rooms!”

Three weeks later, a delegation to my mom to take care of business, numerous in-person meetings, forgotten emails, and a few minor snafus in the meantime, our block went live for our guests.

AND, IT DID NOT WORK. Queue confused calls and texts from guests.

Grumble, grumble, hiss, hiss, obscene gesture, boo.

I asked my mom to take on the whole hotel block contract shenanigans in January as I figured it would be an easy-peasy phone call and contract to arrange for a small grouping of rooms at the hotel located literally between the ceremony and reception site. We want between 12-15 rooms. That’s it. She emailed, called, and met with the sales people of this particular boutique hotel. They signed a contract, a contract which requires us to pick up 90% of the rooms in two months with no resell clause. The sales lady very clearly told the mom that only the standard room is offered as part of the block for $150 a night. Suites, though we can book them for $200 a night, are by contract only and if guests book a suite it does not apply to our block of 15 rooms. Sure, okay, so they will offer the standard rooms when guest call, right? Yep. Moving on…

Pastry’s mom calls the first night to book her room. They tell her the option is a suite for $200 and that the only other option “is a handicapped room that is much, much smaller” for $150. Say, wha? Pastry’s uncle calls – They give him the same run around, book him a suite, and tack on the resort fees to everything something that is clearly waived in our contract. My best friend calls and ends up with a suite. They have now booked four rooms, all suites, for $200 a night and fees, and none of them count toward the hotel block.

Summary of my feelings.

Now, my mom is an epic lady who has managed many, many people for her entire career. She sent perhaps the saltiest email ever to the sales manager at the hotel. Please read the following in a deep, threatening voice of a lady not with whom to fuck.

“We have a major problem with the implementation of the contract we signed for the wedding. Our guests have started to call to book rooms and are being offered only a suite rate of $200. One guest was told the $150 rate was only for a handicap access room, another guest was told that only group sales could handle her request. I am very disappointed in this poor service and the confusion it is causing for our guests is unacceptable. I have an early appointment on Friday morning, but I will call you as soon as I am free.  My expectation is that when are guests call they will be offered the $150 contracted rate. The $200 rate for suites should not be offered at all as we contracted specifically for 3 suites and I have already booked them.  When we speak tomorrow I will look forward to your solutions and expect prompt corrective action.“

The hotel then groveled sufficiently and another friend had no issues when booking her room the next day. Mind you, this is also the same location of the $136 tacos. So, I am not convinced they deserve any business at this point let alone our glorious personages in residence eating tacos at our leisure. But, life and planning move on…

They were very lucky they had to deal with my mom rather than me.

 

 

 

Flowers are slowly driving me mad.

Flowers are slowly driving me mad.

Translation: I’ve reached my first wedding planning hiccup and it makes me want to fire bomb a peony-selling establishment just out of spite. Okay, maybe not that extreme…But, it’s just been a truly odd experience having wedding flowers, something I assumed would be easy, be the hardest and most frustrating part of planning this shindig.

So, I adore flowers. I love getting them, I love picking them, I truly light up when I get to put them in my hair. I stop to smell them on walks. I am now contemplating hitting every flower I see and just calling it quits, spray painting some Home Deport stir-sticks gold, and putting them in dollar store plastic containers on each reception table. There. Done. Le Home Depot chic wedding theme.

Stir Stick Art for Every Table

I thought the flower process would go something like this…

“Hey there, established and reputable vendor, we’d like bright and colorful with lots of texture for this total price point, bonus points for creativity and the ability to let us rent a giant tree for an odd community art project for the middle of the reception.”

“Yeah! Awesome! Here’s the quote with an item breakdown by unit. We buy wholesale and offer competitive prices! Also, here are some other creative ideas in your price point! We’ve worked at your venue before and this will totally work there!”

Reality:

Me: “Hi, yes, I did call earlier. No, I can’t come meet you in the middle of the work day as, uh, I work. Clear over there, huh? Sorry, I can’t drive an hour away to talk about succulents for 20 minutes…Your minimum fee is $5,000? Would you take a kidney donation perhaps as a down payment? No? Liver? Wait, I need that…Yes, I can send you a pinterest board for ideas. Oh, and we’re just going to discuss that after I drive way over there? Okay…”

60 miles of driving later…

Florist: “We’ll send you our proposal in the next week and should you not accept it within 48 hours, it will self-destruct, rendering your computer, left side of your face, and hopes and dreams useless. Also, we will not provide any details and instead quote you a totally random total cost with no justification whatsoever. Additionally, our proposal will consist of cropping pictures from your pin board that you sent us and just naming random flowers in the text. For no additional cost, we will also forget to update sections and writing a long detailed section about the use of pastel yellow ribbons. Because when you said ‘saturated, bright yellow’ we thought you were tasteless and decided light yellow is the way to go. Here’s a free bouquet toss bouquet. YOU WILL TAKE IT AND LIKE IT, YOU WEDDING HEATHEN. Enjoy this bouquet of PINK BEARS. That will be $4,000 and a kidney.”

Also, it seems like all florists are really technologically challenged and they all just REALLY want to talk on the phone. Maybe it’s a lonely profession amongst the flowers and they just want a bit of human contact…But, they really want to call me in the middle of the work day. This is time consuming and I don’t want to have to get obsessed, fall in love, break up with floral ideas anymore. Also, NO LIGHT YELLOW RIBBON.