Formality has its own elegance and charm, but in this era of smartphones and social media sites more and more brides are rejecting formality, in favor of something casual.

Rejecting formality gives you a lot of advantages, including the freedom to pick something from a mesmerizing collection of informal wedding dresses. If you believe that celebrating your wedding in an informal way is the right thing to do, this short but comprehensive guide will tell you how to pull it off.

Inviting your guests

How you invite your guests tells a lot about who you are and how your guests can expect the mood of the celebration to be. When your aim is to go informal and let the world know about the same, inviting your guests using classy engraved invitation cards may not be the best thing to do. Instead, you may want to use handmade papers, decorated with ribbons, textures, bright colors and echoed motifs. Also, it is important that your words on the cards carry the same message, too.

Picking the right spot

Informal weddings do not take place inside giant wedding halls. Instead, they happen quite unpretentiously on beaches, forests, picnic spots and other such locations. Depending on your personality, setting up a white tent on a beautiful beach may be the most appropriate thing to do; or, a ranch in a desert may work wonders. Just make sure that whatever spot you pick, you decorate it using wild flowers like daisies and sunflowers, and give the whole setting a spontaneous look.

Crafting the menu

Foods that call for a very structured wedding reception are generally a no. Instead of impressing your guests with the most elegant and classy of cuisines, try incorporating items like rustic bread loaves with sweet butter, grilled vegetables, smoked meats, and ripe raspberries. Anything that can be eaten using bare hands in an informal way is a fair game.

Dressing yourself up

The whole point of going informal is to allow yourself to dress how you want to dress. That is, you do not want to limit yourself to what is accepted traditionally. A strapless sundress complemented with a hat may be the perfect look for you. Or, your ideal dress may be a sheath that has columnar lines. There are plenty of websites that sell absolutely gorgeous informal wedding dresses, Ricca Sposa being one of the best.

Going informal does not mean that you throw away every element that makes a wedding a wedding. What it means, however, that you celebrate your big day in a way that does not suffocate you, or your guests.