Hi ladies,

I am back home from a very exhausting trip, and just wanted to share with you how the black-tie dinner in Oxford went. First of all, here is a photo of me after dinner, in the "senior common smoking room" (where there is a non-smoking sign): http://picasaweb.google.com/lh.....directlink
I have to say that I was VERY appropriately dressed, all thanks to your advices and feedback! A big thank you to you all!
There were over 100 people there, with less than 10 being women. The women who are not college fellows (college fellows wore academic gowns), wore a variety of festive garb. For example, I saw a woman in a black dress with an open back, a woman in a small velvet jacket and a knee-length taffeta skirt, a woman in a pale green silk dress, and one even wore a full length strapless ball gown, complete with a matching wrap. As for hairstyles, most women had short hair (shorter than shoulder-length), so they just blow-dried it and left it as is. I saw two with longer hair - one did a bun, and another pulled it back with a hairclip.
As you can see, I wore my black silk Sofia dress from JCrew, with a black cami underneath, pearls, pearl studs, a teal pashmina, black classic pumps, and a pewter clutch. The dress has little snaps inside to hold the bra straps in place, but of course something had to happen, and it did: when I was dressing, I discovered that one of this snaps came off. So I pinned my vintage brooch on the left side, holding the dress, the cami, and the bra together. It was actually not too much bling all together.
For the hair, I did a sort of half-updo: I pinned the top and sides of my hair back with invisible pins (black in my case), and left the rest loose. After I put some gel, my hair unexpectedly became curly, so it actually looked very nice. As for the makeup, I did the necessary minimum: a little liquid makeup, a tiny bit of liquid black eyeliner, black mascara, brow pencil, and a lipstick from MAC that is supposed to stay for 10 hours.
The dinner was very formal. There were sitting arrangements, a choir before the meal, three courses meal accompanied by several wines, and then a second dessert. Before the second dessert, we were asked to go outside and walk in the yard for ten minutes, while the tables are being re-laid. This is because the sitting arrangements were changed for the second dessert, thus making sure that you chat with the maximum number of people over dinner. Everyone was asked to take his napkin with him. It was quite a sight: over a hundred of men and women, all dressed in a black-tie attire, walking around the yard with the white cloth napkins in hand

So, thank you all again, my outfit for the dinner was perfect!