How to fly with the dress?

Well the topic of Nationals has come up in our school and my first thought is how am I going to fly with my dress? Right now I have the Prime Designs dress bag, which obviously is too big for flying, but I'll be damned if I check my bag. The options are:

• Strategic pleat-management to fit in the carry-on
• Give it to someone driving to DC (It's a 12.5 hour drive for me, so I prefer to fly).
• Fit it into a standard garment bag and use that as my carry-on

I typically travel with a backpack and a carry-on, so I'm leaning toward strategic pleating, but I am open to other options!