USA Bus Lines

Should I get a shuttle bus for the guests for my wedding?

Most of my guests will be coming in from out of town. I'm expecting about 80-100 to be staying at a local hotel. I found two hotels next to each other about 2.5 miles away from the reception. Neither offers a shuttle bus service. I could rent a 12 person shuttle bus for about $350 - $500. I think it'll take the shuttle bus about 15 to make 1 round trip. The reception starts at 4:00. I'd want to have the shuttle bus start bringing people at 3:30. This would mean that by 4:30, the shuttle bus will have delivered a max of 48 people. 20 of us are going in the limo, and I'm sure there'll be at least 20 people staying at the hotel who will be with at least one person who doesn't drink at all, or much, and will take their own car. Which means that by 4:30 pretty much everyone who wanted to get on the shuttle bus will be at the reception. Let me know what you think. Is it a good idea to get the shuttle bus? Or is it too small for the amount of people. I think a 30 person shuttle bus would be twice as expensive. The other option is to have everyone who doesn't have a sober drive, pay for their own taxi to the reception. cost will be about $8 per cab. But I do not want people waiting for the cab for too long and missing more than half of the coctail hour as a result.

Public Comments

1. If the shuttle bus is out of your budget, you could just leave the transportation up to your guests. If you coordinate it in advance you could order van-taxis in advance so more people could come in one trip. As well, maybe you can get local guests with vans or suvs to pick up some of your guests. Or, for that short of a distance people could take transit. It sounds like you just need the bus to get them to the reception, but will all the out of town guests necessarily be at the hotel before the reception? Won't they be at the ceremony place? If I was going to go to the trouble of hiring a shuttle bus, I would do it at the end of the evening. All the guests make they own arrangements to the reception, then at a certain time a bus will come to the reception hall to take people to their hotel rooms. So if someone is done partying, or had way too much too drink or is tired at least you know they made it safely back to their bed.
2. why don't they just rent their own cars. NMP = not my problem.
3. I think that would be going over and beyond what is required for a wedding. If the reception and ceremony were far away from each other I'd be all for the idea. But why cause yourself so much hastle when it is so close? It's a very nice thought but I don't think you need to bother in this case. $8 is very cheap (especially if they share the cab cost between a few people). If they organise themselves properly the cab shouldn't come late - and even if it does they will only miss a very small part of the reception. And there is always the option of renting a car and car pooling with others. Leave that all up to the guests though - it is a minimal cost that we as guests are quite happy to put up with. (Trust me, all my cousins live in different states so we all have to travel reasonable distances whenever there is a wedding. But no one minds - the cost of travelling is part of going to the wedding - if you can't afford it you just don't go)
4. I think that this is a great idea. It is also a trend that you are seeing in a lot of weddings. If you have a lot of people flying in this would be great because they don't have to rent a car now. They can either shuttle from the airport or take a cab and if you are providing a shuttle to the reception. I also would rather do this for my piece of mind in case you do have people drinking. See if you can get a deal by not having the shuttle the whold reception time just in the beginning and about an hour before the end of the reception.