Inaugural balls are places to see and be seen. But, oh, the horror of showing up in the same dress somebody else is wearing!

Enter DressRegistry.com. It’s a Web site that allows you to “register” your dress for an inaugural event in hopes that no one else will wear the same one.

As of this writing, there are 55 balls listed on the site. Some, like the recently-announced Neighborhood Inaugural Ball, have no dresses claimed. But others have more than a dozen. The Commander-in-Chief Ball, for example, has 21 dresses registered.

Posters on the site have the option to include details about their garb, such as the designer, color, length, and neckline. For the seriously Type-A partygoer, there’s also space to enter your dress’s UPC number, the code that specifically identifies it, leaving no question as to which dress you’re wearing. To further clarify, a description and a photo can be added.

There are also message boards attached to each event, presumably so that partygoers can communicate directly if, say, two had registered the same dress.

But even with the site, there’s no guarantee that you won’t find your identical twin at an inaugural ball. And to prevent any online cat fights, posters on DressRegistry.com are anonymous.

In an interview with the Washington Times, DressRegistry.com founder Andrew Jones said, “The one thing [women] can’t do is see who is wearing what. That would be cheating.”

>> All Washingtonian.com inauguration coverage 

More>> Shop Around Blog | Style | Find a Spa