I am NOT the Original Poster. That is dest_wedding_throw12.

Do NOT comment on Original Posts. Latest update is 7 days old.

Mood Spoiler: happy ending

Editor's note spoiler: people in the OG thread really really hated destination weddings

Original Post: January 18, 2022

We're having an all-inclusive destination wedding in 2023. Like most places, we're required to book a room block in advance. To qualify for discounts for guests, guaranteed rooms, and various other wedding package perks, we must book X amount of people through the room block we paid for in our contract.

It turns out 2 of our guests have a timeshare through the resort, effectively slashing their reservation price by about 30% from the online price. Our package cuts it down maybe 10% at most (weddings must be in demand.. hmm I wonder why). Without asking, they went ahead and booked their timeshare, only to tell us later.

Then they shared their timeshare membership to 4 other guests (6 total now), who are all booking reservations through the wholesale timeshare company. It's one of those multi-resort packages that cost a lump sum, and then once or twice per year the member gets heavily discounted vacations.

We were okay planning around 2 guests, but now 6 guests are circumventing our wedding package that we paid for altogether.

We are now somewhat worried about meeting our minimum guests booked through package threshold in the contract to have the wedding, ceremony, and rehearsal. Without the minimum guest threshold, we lose the rehearsal and ceremony. I'm sure we can ask for an exception and pay any extra fees out of pocket if it comes to it. We'll also probably fail to meet other tiers that would give our package the extra oomph we wanted to subsidize rooms and pass around upgrades to guests, bringing down the cost of the wedding as a whole for everyone coming. We can't guarantee any subsidization until we reach a tier that helps us towards that goal, so I don't want to dangle that carrot in front of their heads.

We could tell them to book 3 nights (the required minimum through our package) through us, and then any other nights through their timeshare. But I'm tempted, for simplicity's sake, to tell them no altogether. They need to book through the wedding package to be a part of the wedding. Am I the asshole?

**edit**: We don't save more money if more people book. We can just pass out more free rooms and upgrades, and other guest discounts (spa package discounts, free golf, etc). That's what I meant by bringing down costs of the wedding as a whole. Our package is a flat $ rate regardless of who books, so long as a minimum # of guests book through the block. If the minimum isn't met, we lose our private reception and dinner, but it doesn't cost us more.

Second Edit (Same Post): January 19, 2022 (Next Day)

** edit edit **: Not verbatim, but I've gone ahead and told them congrats on the discount. We're happy they are all able to attend. Make sure to keep in touch with the travel agent who is more familiar with the resort to make sure all goes smoothly. I do know transportation to and from the airport won't be provided outside the package, so make sure to ask your timeshare reps how they recommend tackling that (we hadn't planned ahead last time and ended up paying $60 each way). And that I'll ask if the resort needs to give you a specific colored wristband or anything to indicate that you are a part of the wedding so that you have no issues.

Some of OOP's Comments (there were a lot):

Commenter: YTA, it's not up to you where people stay, and especially not how they choose to pay for that stay.

OOP: (heavily downvoted) It's an all-inclusive. So the ceremony, reception, rehearsal and etc is all put on by the resort as part of the package. To do so in these places, they require a % of the guests must stay on site (their rule not my own).
edit: Jeez, I understand the downvotes for some of my replies, but this one is just informational. Goodness

Commenter: Are you making the guests pay you for their rooms or are you covering all expenses?

OOP: (downvoted) We paid for the block wholesale. We pass savings down to guests, but we are not paying for all their rooms. Instead we'd like to subsidize their rooms at a later date to help pay the room costs for guests.
We live in a very cold climate and with family/friends all over the place, so it made more sense to us to have the wedding in a warm location and to put their plane ticket towards an area they would actually enjoy.

Commenter: YTA. Your guests are there to celebrate with you, not underwrite your wedding. The last destination wedding I went to several guests did exactly this, and the bride and groom were just happy they came. If you try to force people to stay where you want,,they might not come.

OOP: (heavily downvoted) Did that resort not force the guests to stay on the resort where the ceremony is hosted? There's all kinds of clauses in all the resorts we looked at that said 80/90%+ of guests must stay on-site. 120/150/200 nights cumulative through the wedding package, etc.
If it really ended up not being an issue I'll just forget about it. There's just so much damn fine print.
edit: Damn, quite the downvote for an honest question

Commenter: You could try taking to your coordinator. We did a destination wedding, about 2/3 of the guests booked through us, the ones flying in from the other side of the country found a better deal with a local agent. We show to our coordinator and she was able to group everyone under the same "event" so we got all the perks, private group dinners, music, champagne toasts, classic car etc.

Our guests were mostly older so getting a ride in the classic car is still talked about 6 years later.

OOP: Thanks for the advice, I didn't know this was possible. Going to shoot off an email to the coordinator now. Your wedding sounds like an absolute blast! At least some affirmation that destination isn't a horrible idea, lol.

Commenter: destination weddings are gross and rude

OOP: Makes sense when you have family all over the world.
I would rather them travel somewhere warm than the very cold climate we live. Why spend all that money to go somewhere they definitely don't want to go versus a beach?

Commenter: Hey, Bridezilla, YTA!!! First of all, a destination wedding basically screams to people “I don’t really care if you can afford this or not. I don’t give a crap how much vacation time you get from your job or if you’d sacrifice a whole year because I am so entitled. And lastly, I’m going to insist you pay MORE and do it through my block because I get added benefits. Never mind that I also expect an expensive gift in addition to you having to shell out airfare, accommodations, possibly a new/different wardrobe, food and drinks, etc. and so on.”

You saddled people with a huge expense for the privilege of seeing you get married and now you want to demand that they pay a higher rate. Bridezilla might be too kind.

OOP: Most our family and friends live nowhere near our very cold climate. We'd rather have a wedding guests would potentially get excited to go to rather than coming to our frigid small town. We are not asking for gifts. We do not mind if guests cannot make it. In fact, we worried that having it in town would make guests feel more obligated to come. We're perfectly fine with a small wedding on the beach.

Commenter: But there’s an implied gift requirement to everyone invited. That’s what happens with weddings. Whether someone attends or not, they’re supposed to send a gift. Essentially all of civilized society knows this. So, essentially it breaks down to most people as this: I don’t care if you come because you’re obligated to send a gift. Except now you don’t even get a dinner and some wedding cake in exchange.

OOP: It says directly on our website that we do not have an online registry because we are not asking for gifts due to the big ask of having them fly and stay for a destination wedding. Unless they somehow avoid that part of the website, I would hope they know.

Commenter: INFO: did the invites state they needed to book on your block?

OOP: No it did not, just some methods at their disposal to help them book.

Commenter: Yikes, NAH.

I feel like people are being too hard on op and misinterpreting what they're saying.

NAH because wedding planning is stressful and honestly a scam, and you're just trying to see if the people in the timeshares will effect your contract.

But also the guests have a right to stay where they want and to save money while doing so.

Over all it's a sucky situation. But you seem like a nice person who has put in a lot of consideration towards what other people's wants and needs even though it's your wedding. I hope everything works out, and it everything you want it to be.

OOP: I appreciate the kind words. I definitely almost overreacted (thank goodness I took a long time to reflect on what I was going to say to these guests), and I do feel terrible about that. I'll have to be more reflective in the future about each guest and the effort they are making just to attend this silly thing.
These all-inclusives are a bit unusual with weddings and how the entire event works from start to finish. Lots of pages of details to look over. While it's my fault I signed something and not my guest's problem, I think my explanation of how this even works at these all-inclusives was poor and fell flat.

Commenter: I cannot tell you how many AITA posts we get from people who wonder if they're TA for not staying at the expensive resort that the soon-to-be married couple insists on. They are never TA. The hotel is counting on you pressuring your guests to stay there in order to make their profit. Do not risk damaging your relationships so they can make a buck!

Your wedding will not be wonderful because you scored someone a free round of golf or a 50% discount on a massage. It will be wonderful because you and your spouse-to-be love each other and will be surrounded by your friends and family celebrating your love, no matter how they choose to come or where they stay.

OOP: Thanks for the advice. Well put. I'm going to try to forget about the contract for awhile and see what happens. You're right, the way the package is structured basically makes us the salesmen. It doesn't feel great, but it's what I have gotten myself into. Luckily I reflected enough before saying anything stupid to a guest that I'd regret later. I'm going to just enjoy our company and be grateful for anyone who can make it.

OOP is voted YTA

Update Post: January 15, 2025 (3 years later)

A few years have gone by and today I remembered how much (negative) attention it had gotten. I'm writing an update coming up on our 2 year anniversary about our experience, and to maybe deter anyone from declining a destination wedding or resort contract based on my original post or the comments in the original thread, if that's what you want to do.

I didn't cover reasoning for doing a destination wedding in the OP. Our guests were spread all over and some in other countries. It did not make sense to have them come to where we live, since it's mostly nothing, frigid, and expensive to travel here. Why not spend that time and money somewhere memorable? Saying no to attending a destination wedding is easy. No harm no foul. Another reason we chose a destination wedding was to spend more time with relatives who we don't see often, instead of the couple of hours.

Everything went better than expected. A hundred people came, so my worries about a contracted guest "minimum" was misplaced. I was afraid of renegotiating a contract after guests booked, since the contract had nullification clauses. I realized after the OP that the resort wants you to be a pseudo-salesman. Some comments didn't consider how these resorts operate, but many were correct about the salesy contract I got myself into. We didn't ask our timeshare guests to change anything, and we've remained close friends. The contract was our only wedding planning stress point. It's understandable if you don't want to deal with it, but if you're reading this and going through that phase now, just relax. Careful what you sign, but also the resort isn't going to play hardball with someone bringing them business. We were able to meet all "thresholds" (not that we cared) and spent them on upgrading all family and wedding party to beachfront swim out rooms, and gave a % off the final room costs for all guests.

The trip created lasting memories and we're grateful for everyone who came. The event itself got rained out, but the staff was incredible and moved us to an indoor venue. The day prior we had toured with the coordinator and planned the setup outdoor, for all of that to be thrown out the window an hour beforehand. Even though we hadn't even seen the indoor venue or setup, it really didn't matter. The staff went above and beyond and we couldn't thank them enough. We're blessed our guests travelled from all over the world to celebrate with us.

I wanted to write this update because maybe someone searches Reddit and stumbles upon both threads -- I couldn't find much information online about this topic. Yes, the contract is a negative to consider. But if you're in a position like us where people would be traveling quite some distance anyway, and you want everyone to have a memorable tropical experience, don't look back. Reddit might have your ass in the comment section, but zealous words on a website won’t change real-life events involving people who have no affiliation with them.

Some of OOP's Comments:

Commenter: 🤣🤣🤣🤣omg I wanted a destination wedding because I didn’t WANT anyone to come 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 you had 100 ppl come ? And you met thresholds? You were able upgrade because all these people canned so basically your wedding was paid for by other ppl? 🙄😳omgeeeee

OOP: Of course we wanted people to come, but several comments in the OP complained about going to destination weddings. Then just say no to the invite? It's not a big deal.
The wedding was a flat rate. The room block contract was separate and the wholeseller of the block provided a higher discount to guests the more rooms booked (clever way to get you to become a salesmen, unfortunately). We didn't hand people money after the hotel handed us money, it's automatic. And then they simply asked us who to upgrade leading up to the wedding.

Commenter: I'm confused. In your original OP, you said that if you didn't get the minimum threshold you would "lose the rehearsal and ceremony". What was that about?

OOP: When the travel agent explained the package to us initially, I conflated the minimums between the room block contract and the wedding contract. The wedding contract for private rehearsal, reception, and ceremony would be lost if there were not enough wedding guests, not block guests (I had that incorrect in the OP and clarified at a later date). Events would have instead been sectioned off in a restaurant or other public use area. Our guess was to utilize restaurant/bar staff instead of overstaffing a wedding. Even if it was a block guests minimums, we would have been fine -- my initial reaction was rash.

OOP responds to a downvoted commenter saying she's hung up on this:

Hung up on this? I forgot about it until yesterday.
We strictly did no gifts and made it clear that if coming would be a burden to decline. Just about everyone would have to pay for those things to come if it was local anyway. I'd bet my life savings the flight and drive after to where we live is double a flight to the destination we picked.

Commenter: I just read the original post. Holy hell, the gumption to even think about asking people who already have a timeshare at that resort to pay outside of that!! I live part time in a desirable vacation location that is popular for weddings. It would be like if someone invited me to their wedding but said I had to pay to stay at the wedding hotel instead of my own (paid for) house, and forbade me from letting others stay here with me.

Glad it all worked out, and that OP did not in fact tell timeshare owners they couldn't use their timeshares. Because SHEESH.

OOP: yeeaaaa I certainly earned my well-deserved share of flak for that post. I think getting a consensus on a general idea by posting it on the internet and the actual actions and solutions that occurred got a little misconstrued, but it's my fault for ever considering something along those lines.
In the end the only solution I decided I could deploy, if something truly had to happen, was to ask them to save their timeshare, let me know how much they saved, and that we would cover the difference to get them under our block. I was only going to consider that if the resort gave us no other option and after plenty of arguing with the resort. But that didn't happen. We had a few more of the more adventurous guests stay off resort in the end anyway. The scary words in the contract never mattered.