My Oscar Moment - What to Wear to a Black Tie Wedding?

So I'm going to a black tie wedding in October... Normally this would not be a problem, but it has definitely caused some fashion panic on my end. In a fit of feng shui and a massive closet cleanout - I got rid of every long dress I had last year. I didn't have that many to begin with, and most of them were relics from when I lived in New York City 8 years ago. So I knew when I started flipping through my closet that I wasn't going to find much in the black tie department. I did find one Trina Turk dress - and Trina normally does me right, but it just didn't seem to fit the bill. The wedding is in New Jersey, and the reception starts on the later side, so I while I'm a big believer that a short dress can look just as chic at a black tie function, for this wedding I felt like I needed to go long. I did a quick check with my college friends and they all said they were going long.

My dress hunt took me to Bluefly.com (I perused Saks and Bloomingdales too). I was pleasantly surprised to find "the dress" pretty early in my search. The one I picked was this Tadashi Shoji number. I'm loving the navy color, and the one-shoulder is definitely in right now. It looks very regal to me, and as I said to a friend, it will make me feel like it is my Oscar moment. Now that's a bit laughable considering it is a wedding in New Jersey, and nowhere near a red carpet, but just go along with me.  The dress arrived today and with the exception of needing to be hemmed, I think it's going to be perfect. Now for the shoes....

You'd think my fashion crisis ends here, but alas, there's still one more challenge ahead. The wedding ceremony is a Catholic mass at 2pm, so I still have to find something to wear to that. Thankfully I'm not too worried about that, I'll go short for sure, and of course find something for the shoulders.

This whole thing is making me think back to a summer (way before I was a wedding planner) where I was a guest at ELEVEN weddings. And I went to all of them! Between college and high school friends and a couple cousins, it was, (as my mom called it) "the year of the wedding".