Hello everyone!

First of all, I have a wedding coming up - my own! ^ - in December 2010, and there would likely be a fair number of people/parties coming in from out of town. To that end, I'd like to investigate setting up wedding weekend group rates and discounts from hotels, airlines, etc. to make the event even a bit more affordable for my guests.

If you have any experiences or advice in the following, I'd really appreciate hearing from you on, at least, ways to start this process:

• Hotel Group Discounts or Group Blocks - do we need to pre-pay for the rates to be secured? if not, how does that work? what if not all of the rooms in our block are used?
• Airline Discounts, i.e. "The Official Airline of ... Wedding" - kind of a wild idea, but as a frequent CO/*A traveler, it'd be nice to direct business towards them for others who may not have such preferences
• Rental Car Discounts - not as crucial, but may also be practical!

(is there any way I can leverage my status in various frequent traveler programs to solicit any of these?!?)

Needless to say, pretty much all of my travel experience has been to make sure that my needs are met, so this is a different set of considerations all together.

Thanks,
-Mike