This is a repost. The original was posted in /r/AmItheAsshole by User dest_wedding_throw12. I'm not the original poster.

Status: Concluded.

Original

January 1, 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.

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** 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.

Consensus: Asshole. People point out it should be the choice of guests how to spent their money.

Update

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.

Comments by 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.

We strictly said no gifts. And where did I say the wedding was free? We paid for our room and the wedding in full. And how do you know the rooms were overpriced? Would you say our discounted room block rate $150/night at an all-inclusive is overpriced? We fought pretty hard with the wholesaler to get our rates low, and went through several resorts before our final decision.

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.

I'm not the original poster.