Staying the Night

We will have a lot of out of town guests at our wedding.  In fact, "out of town" is probably an understatement - I should say "out of country".  Approximately 50% of our guest list will be crossing the US/Canada border to attend the celebration, and another 10 - 15% will travel for more than an hour to join us.  Because of this, arranging for hotel accommodations was a very important task, one that we knew had to be taken care of early.

It dawned on me this morning that I've never told you about our great accommodations find!  We have informed our guests about the reserved hotels via our STD's and website, and have received overwhelmingly positive feedback!  I think that I have heard at least twice as many "great choice on the hotel, guys" than "Wow!  Your STDs are beautiful and amazing and must have taken so much hard work!"

On to the goods!  After checking out many of your standard hotel chains in our area, including the Holiday Inn, the Comfort Inn, and the Marriott Residence Inn, we were just not impressed.  Even with a group discount, the hotel rooms were expensive (averaging around $120.00), and they were mostly located about 30 minutes from our venue, right next to Highway 401.

Glamorous, right?

We were generally pretty disappointed until FMIL Pudding suggested that we go check out the Residence and Conference Centre .  Initially, I wrinkled my nose at this, since I knew that "the conference center" was really just a fancy name for "the dorms at your local college".  I thought that there was no way that our guests would want to stay in run down student housing.  Boy, was I in for a treat!

When we visited the grounds, the hotel turned out to be exactly what we had been looking for.  It's located just around the corner from our reception hall, and boasts beautiful facilities including a gym, pool, and outdoor fields.  And the "dorms" were not like the ones that I remembered from college:  they were spacious and very comfortable suites! 

 

Each suite comes with two bedrooms with double beds, a bathroom, and a kitchenette/common area.  Let's look at a couple of pics, shall we?

 

  

  

I think that our guests will be more than comfortable!  And the best part?  These suites will cost our guests around $80.00 per night.  Since they're more than big enough to be shared by two couples, or a family with children, the total cost to our guests is about $20/person! And that's in Canadian dollars, people! Score!

In case you're interested in reserving something similar for your guests, there are comparable accommodations available through the Residence and Conference Center in Canadian cities like Ottawa, Toronto, Hamilton, Windsor, and many others!  I bet there are similar facilities in the US as well.

Did you reserve a block of hotel rooms for your out of town guests?  Did you go extravagant or thrifty?

*Unless otherwise noted, all pictures are from the Residence and Conference Center website.