Not ideal, I know, but is this dress 'okay' for a ball?

[babedia]

Getting ridiculously stressed about a work ball on Saturday. It's not my work, it's DH's. I was planning on just wearing a dress I bought recently for a wedding but it's black tie and the more I think about it the more I think this dress is wrong. It's this one:
www.hobbs.co.uk/index.cfm?page=1078&element=3345& amp;parent=1068&numdisplay=0

Normally I wear it with a bolero jacket from the same shop, but I bought an ivory shawl yesterday (those that are a bit stiff) to tie at the back (so it's just round my shoulders) and an ivory clutch bag.

I went to the same ball about 6 years ago and some people had evening gowns but most just looked really smart, but with evening-looking clothes, iyswim, my dress is too much of a day dress. Does that make sense? I don't want to spend a fortune buying something new and I haven't got much time either! Help. Will it be okay?

oh and the short brown one was a bridesmaid dress

I agree it's not a dress for a ball. I think you will feel under dressed. You need something at least cocktail but preferably full length. Sorry not what you wanted to hear but....

blue one is this shape

Mrs Badger, just sent you an email to say thank you for the gorgeous Isabella dress, but it won't fit! Not sure I'll be able to lose a dress size by tomorrow evening. Thank you again though. You're very kind.

hey, how was the ball? did you have a nice time? what did you wear in the end?

Hi Indiasmum! I went to Monsoon on Saturday morning in search for your gorgeous dress but of course I hadn't thought of the fact that all full length dresses were far too long for me and wouldn't be able to find someone to cut it in time for the evening. In the end I bought a black dress from Monsoon (can't link to it because their website doesn't seem to be working at the moment). It had an ivory belt which happily went with all the other accessories I'd already bought in ivory. Once I got home and got everything together and had my hair done nicely, it did look a lot better than I thought at the shop, and I had lots of compliments. I'm glad I didn't take the other dress. Although there were quite a few people in summery dresses, the standard was generally quite high! How was your ball?

i'm glad you had a nice time. your dress sounds lovely. i had one that sounds like that from coast that i wore at a xmas thing. the ball is next fri actually. cant wait though am a bit nervous as its dh's work thing, well they have a table at this ball and it seems to be all partners in the company...and me and dh.... dh says i have to be myself but not too much!!!