I want it all... I want it all... I want it all...

and I want it now. No, not really. I am not impatient, but I am a picky girl. I really am. I realize that I want alot and, what is even worse, I don't want to pay alot for it. Picky and frugal. This has been problematic for my hunt for the perfect hotel for our out of town guests see here, here, and here. I want, in addition to a good price, a good location, a good room, and the ability to have an informal rehearsal dinner (read pizza party - but with really good pizza), and a day after brunch. Yeah, it is a tall order. So those condo rentals that I blogged about previously really don't help me out here, since they are usually for just a single unit.

Then it occurred to me - what if we found a small hotel and rented out the entire place? Wouldn't we be free to do what we want there? Something like... a Bed and Breakfast. A quick search on tripadvisor (seriously my very good friend) , and I found several small B&B's in great locations.

First up was a great little place with 12 tidy rooms and wonderful recommendations.

This would be a great location for all of our soirées (credit)

Unfortunately, they were a tad too expensive for our guests budgets. But it was otherwise perfect. There were a few more listed to chose from, but only one other B&B is actually small enough for us to use up all their rooms and in a good enough location.


With only 10 rooms, this B&B is a little more rustic and cozy. And it is very cost effective.

(credit)

There is a beautiful palm garden in the back of the property which also has 2 sundecks. It should nicely accommodate our little pizza partee. (credit)

I hope to check this out during my 3rd 1 week wedding planning extravaganza in mid September. I only hope it is as perfect as I think it might be. Until then, no more hotel posts, I promise!

So, how are you organizing your out of town guests and all your wedding events? Are you having a hard time keeping everyone together and making things as simple as possible?

Hotel hunting makes my head hurt

This has honestly been one of the most exhausting parts of planning to date. But I have finally made some decisions. I have displayed my unhappiness with the hotel we are courting for our room block contract a few times. There are a few problems with it... (1) the inability to have the reception dinner and day after brunch there, (2) the bridal suite isn't that sweet, (3) the location is ...eh. , (4) plus they gave my momma the run around a few times when it came time to view the actual rooms. As a result, we aren't floored by the hotel. But, the price is right for the quality of the rooms and decent proximity of the beach.

Our contract, which we were able to get with hotelplanner.com, is set up so that we have no obligation to the rooms - no deposits, no guarantees to fill a certain percentage of rooms, nada. The rooms are only set aside for us to reserve up to 30 days before the wedding. Since there are no repercussions, we decided that we will just go head with the contract and hope to find a better hotel that is closer to the action of South Beach, without breaking the bank.

View from the beach of Ocean Drive (credit)

I still have a few more tricks up my sleeve for trying to find a decent-priced accommodations for our out of town guests that can also host our little soirees. More on that soon. But, I am curious, am I the only one who has had a hard time finding a decent place for her guests to stay?

Oh how I dislike greed.

So I have yet to decide on this whole hotel block dilemma. As I blogged about previously, the prices for hotels in March are astounding. Although, I believe that we have found a good hotel, with a nice location and value for the price, there has been one thing stopping me from signing a contract with them... they seem to be a tad greedy.

See they have a nice pool and courtyard and like an idiot, I asked them if we could have an informal pizza party there. Well, because the "W" word (as in wedding) had already been mentioned, they knew that really meant - rehearsal dinner. And, nope, they will not allow us to eat pizza by their pool. Instead, we can have a "really informal catered event" at their restaurant. Of course, this is at a cost of at least $30 a person. It is the same thing for the morning after the wedding - no bagels by the pool. Instead, they will serve us bagels for $20 a person. This is ridiculous considering that a continental breakfast is included as part of the hotel room cost.

An additional $50 a person for food is more than half our catering costs for the wedding as it is! We really wanted these get togethers before and after the wedding so we could mingle with our wonderful out of town guests. We wanted them to be super informal and the hotel seemed to be the best location for it. So if we decide to block a bunch of rooms at this hotel, what do we do? I am absolutely NOT paying them to serve us pizza and bagels. As an alternative , would a pizza reception dinner and day after brunch be ok to have on the beach right across the street? We could have blankets for everybody instead of chairs.