Wedding Wednesday: Hotel alternatives

There are some adorable places to stay in the historic Soulard neighborhood of St Louis.

My goal for the past few weeks has been to choose and reserve a place for Ben and I to stay on our wedding night, and I finally checked this item off my list today! Our wedding guests are invited to reserve their rooms in our wedding block at the Westin St. Louis according to the directions on our website (see the 'guest information' page), but we wanted to select something out-of-the-box for our own newlywed lodging. If you're reading this and thinking 'yeah right, they just didn't want to stay at the same hotel as their family after the wedding!' ...you are absolutely correct.

However, after researching vacation rentals in the historic Soulard area, I was also really motivated to find a place that Ben and I could easily walk to after the reception. It turns out that there are at least three apartments within 0.1 miles of our venue! All of them start at $160/night and have two-night minimums, but sleep at least 4 people comfortably. Ben and I selected this one, which sleeps 7, so that he and his groomsmen can stay there the night before the wedding and arrive at the 9th Street Abbey early to deliver and set up some of our decor. After the reception, he and I will stumble/crawl/sleepwalk back. The other two apartments we considered are owned by the same person, but they have additional charges for the 3rd and 4th guests and had less pre-wedding sleeping space for the groomsmen. However, maybe one of these places will be a good fit for friends or family who wish to spend a long weekend in St Louis. Check 'em out here and here and under the guest information page on our website.

My only hesitation with this choice is that it might be more economical for an entire family to rent the larger apartment, since there is plenty of space to spread out and it would be cheaper than getting multiple hotel rooms; Ben and the groomsmen would survive just fine in one of the smaller apartments and goodness knows he and I don't need 3 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms to ourselves. If any of the aunts/uncles and their families or groups of friends are interested in this, please let me know so I can make the appropriate changes and reserve one of the smaller places as well! The weekend of our wedding is the first of post-season baseball, so the other two apartments are sure to be booked quickly.