title: Sending emails to recipients with international characters
body: <p>I need to send an email to a recipient with international characters in the email address. An example email would be:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>GaÙl@asterixthe.com</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I've done quite a bit of searching but the information I'm finding is for the body and not the recipient. Do I need to mime encode this in some way and if so, how?</p>
  
  <p>The code I've got is below:</p>
  
  <pre><code> MailMessage mailMessage = 
      new MailMessage(email.SenderEmailAddress, email.RecipientEmailAddress, "Why hello there!", emailMessage)
      {
          IsBodyHtml = true,
          BodyEncoding = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding()
      };
  
  
   SmtpClient smtpClient = new SmtpClient("localhost")
   {
      Port = 25,
   };
   smtpClient.Send(mailMessage);
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Thanks,</p>
  
  <p>Simon</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit: Here's the exception</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>System.FormatException: The specified string is not in the form required for an
  e-mail address.
     at System.Net.Mime.MailBnfHelper.ReadMailAddress(String data, Int32&amp; offset,
  String&amp; displayName)
     at System.Net.Mime.MailBnfHelper.ReadMailAddress(String data, Int32&amp; offset)
     at System.Net.Mail.MailAddressCollection.ParseValue(String addresses)
     at System.Net.Mail.MailAddressCollection.Add(String addresses)
     at System.Net.Mail.Message..ctor(String from, String to)
     at System.Net.Mail.MailMessage..ctor(String from, String to)
     at System.Net.Mail.MailMessage..ctor(String from, String to, String subject,
  String body)
  </code></pre>