Asking guests to pay for their own meal the night before the wedding?

We stayed at a hotel where the wedding was being held the night before my sons wedding. They decide ded on a restaurant and sent a note to everyone saying something along the lines of ... We plan to eat at such and such a restaurant at x time. Prices range from x to y. We are very happy for anyone who wishes to join us to come along. Most went and we all knew that we would be payng for our own meal and noone has a problem with it. I think as long as people don't arrive thinking its a free meal there is no problem. If they wish to meat somewhere else or not bother at all its entirely up to them.

Rehearsal dinners are standard in the US, and are hosted (and paid for) by the groom's family.

How that translates over to the UK - I'm not sure.

However, I'd probably separate out the invitation to the rehearsal dinner from the wedding invitations/RSVP so it's clear that it's casual, separate and they'll pay for it.

We have hired barns across the road from our venue for the weekend of the wedding. The night before the wedding, we are planning on having a BBQ or hog roast for everyone in the wedding party (about 30 odd people) which we are intending to pay for. The morning after the wedding, we are heading to a local B&B (where other guests are staying) to have breakfast with everyone in their restaurant which will be buffet style. I'm not going to pay for the breakfast as it is another £12.95 each on top of everything else that we will have paid for. The guests staying at the B&B will have it included in their room rate and the other 30 people, I will just tell them that they are welcome along to breakfast the next day and it is £12.95 each so that it is clear that they will have to pay. I might put a separate insert in with their invitations so that they know the plan for the weekend X

I think it's fine to expect everyone to pay for their own meals, providing they are aware that they will be doing so.

We did go to a wedding where the invite asked for guests to join them the evening before at the camp site for drinks, so there was no formal meal so to speak. The invite stated that guests could enjoy a pot of something on arrival, however it wasn't clear at all that this would be at an extra cost (in fact it read very much the opposite to most!), so there were a few people that were a bit miffed at being asked to pay afterwards!

As someone above said though, if you invite people to a meal and say something like, 'if you would like to join us, meals are priced between x and y pounds', to me it would be pretty clear that you will not be paying for the meal

I think it’s fine as you have said that you don’t expect everyone to come – as long as you’re upfront with people from the beginning to there are no awkward conversations on the night it’ll be fine!

If you put something along the same lines as Jayne E's son, you'll be fine - we're eating in X place, come and join us, prices range from X to Y cost. No-one would think they were getting a free meal that way!