A bride tried on 7 dresses before finding a one-of-a-kind gown with a 16-pound skirt

The couple met as freshmen in college in 2010.

"It was a mutual friend who actually brought him to my floor, and while we weren't exactly fans initially, we sort of became best friends," Nasui told Insider. "Senior year of college, we started officially dating, and the rest is history."

The couple got engaged while vacationing in Nice, France, in 2017.

Nasui is originally from Romania, so the couple decided to have their wedding in the same place they got engaged to make it easier for her family to attend.

Plus, the French location would turn their wedding into a built-in trip for their friends.

They got legally married in a civil ceremony in Chicago, Illinois, in May 2019, and they planned their big French celebration for June 2019.

She didn't have a particular silhouette in mind, but she wanted her look to be elegant and timeless.

"My husband and I used to do styled shoots, so I had tried various types of dresses," she told Insider. "But for my own wedding, I still didn't really have an idea of what I wanted."

"I always loved the Kate Middleton lace look," she added. "And if anyone knows me, they know I really do love glittery sparkly things."

Nasui said she didn't want to pigeonhole herself, though, which is why she decided to make multiple appointments at salons in New York City over the course of a weekend to figure out what would work best for her. She set a flexible budget of $6,000.

"I knew from the get-go this was not it," Nasui said of the gown, which featured head-to-toe lace and a mesh cut out on the back.

"But I was trying to be polite about it," she added, which is why she's posing with her thumbs up in the photo.

"I did love the lace sleeves, but it just wasn't me at all," Nasui said. She also pointed out that she might have liked the dress more if it hadn't been a sample size.

"It's a lot harder to get an idea of what the dress will actually look like once it's fitted," she said. "Maybe that dress with the sleeves would have looked a lot better and I would have loved it if it was actually my size."

"That one I picked because it was the longest train in the store," she said, which drew her to it. "I wanted to see what it felt like to walk around in a super, super long train."

"And it is very, very hard," she said, explaining that the added weight was really difficult to maneuver. "So props to brides who have those long trains."

"It was pretty, but it wasn't the va-va-voom I was looking for," Nasui said of the gown.

"I'm usually not a strapless person, but my mom insisted on this one," Nasui said of this gown. "It was cute. It was pretty classic."

"And what I loved about it is it had pockets," she said. But the pockets weren't enough to win her over. "It was just not very spectacular in my mind."

"I was in love with it when I first tried it on," she said of the gown, which featured a tulle skirt and an asymmetrical bow on the bodice.

"It's obviously very unique being half and half," Nasui said. "And it was a really, really good structured fit. Strapless will sometimes fall off, but this one not at all. It had wonderful boning."

She really liked it, but she wanted to go to her other appointments before she made a decision. Plus, Nasui showed her mom a photo and she didn't like it.

"If I truly loved it that much, I would have gone with it," Nasui told Insider, despite her mother's opinion.

Her last appointment was at Kleinfeld Bridal. Nasui's mother and godmother were emotional when she tried on this big ball gown, but Nasui didn't like it as much.

"It looks really beautiful. It was definitely classic the way I was like looking for something," she said. "But it was too boring for my personality."

However, Nasui did like the beaded shoulder piece, and she decided she wanted to incorporate it into her final look.

The transparent lace bodice was pretty, but it wasn't what Nasui was imagining for herself. Plus, the skirt didn't look natural with the gown in her opinion.

"It almost looked like I was wearing a bodysuit," she said.

"I had seen the dress in a magazine," Nasui said of the Pnina Tornai gown, which featured a low neckline and was made of a sparkly fabric. She showed the photo to her Kleinfeld consultant, and they found the dress for her.

"Initially, I did not actually love it because the way it's supposed to be is an overskirt, but it's only like a half overskirt," she said of the dress when she tried it on. Nasui didn't think the half skirt was flattering on her frame, so she was ready to move on to another gown.

"But my godmother actually was like, 'What if we just bring the train around,'" she said.

"They reset it around my waist with the train in the front, so it looked like a full circle skirt," Nasui said.

"And it was a game changer," she said of the dress. "I absolutely loved it when I saw it like that."

The full skirt would also still removable, so she could have a sleeker look for the reception.

"I absolutely love, love, love that decision," she said of her custom look. But she said she loved everything about the gown. "From the fabric color to the glitter top. I'm a big fan of the V-neck."

"It would have been perfect if we could make a small change, and they were willing to accommodate," she said of Kleinfeld.

The dress cost $7,500, and Nasui did her alterations through Kleinfeld, which has a base alterations cost of $895. Her veil was Pnina Tornai as well.

"I picked that one up in Chicago actually," she said of the tiara, and her best friend is to thank for her hair.

"He knew my hair very well, and over the years, we always mess around with fun, different hairstyles," she said. "So when it was wedding time, we said, 'Let's do a big bun.'"

"My skirt was actually 16 pounds, which was really hard to walk in," she said. "But that's why I was thankful it was removable."

She originally planned to wear the skirt during her first dance, but her husband advised her against it once he saw how heavy it was.

Wanderlust Wedding planned the event, and Ingrid Lepan and Jérémy Ferrero documented the day.

"I actually started getting an allergy to it on my chest, which is why when we put together the dress, we said let's make it into a belt," she explained.

Nasui wore the piece on her shoulders during the reception, but she got a protective layer put onto the back of the garment to ensure she didn't break out during the wedding.

"The plane wouldn't let us bring both parts without checking it," Nasui said, which she understandably didn't want to do because of the risk of losing the gown.

She also didn't want to reveal to her husband that the dress had two parts before the wedding.

Nasui's mother ended up taking part of the dress for her, but it was still a cumbersome process.

There's a lot brides need to do before an appointment to optimize their experience at a boutique, and Nasui didn't necessarily do most of that.

"I wore black underwear," she joked. "Like why would I do that? I wish I would've worn the correct undergarments and brought heels, but I guess I just didn't even do a basic Google search."

You can read Insider's guide to wedding dress shopping here.

Nasui originally had eight bridal appointments, but she went shopping in New York the weekend a bomb cyclone hit New York in 2018.

"My flight was canceled three days in a row" because of the storm, Nasui said. As a result, she missed half of her appointments.

"That's not to say I didn't love my dress," Nasui said. "But I just always feel the what ifs, specifically because I had those four appointments that I missed."

"We live together. We work from home together. We work at the same company," she said. "We have very similar interests in terms of music."

"We actually first bonded over our love of classic rock, which was kind of less common, especially back in 2010 compared to what was on the radio," she said.

"We can do literally anything together, and I think that's really, really special."

"It definitely sets a good foundation for the rest of the relationship, and I'm learning more and more now, especially having such a different life in quarantine, how important that is," she said.

"When we got married in 2019, we certainly didn't think that a year later we'd be celebrating our anniversary raising chickens in a 300 person town in Wisconsin," she said. "we moved up here late February or early March, and we said, if we're going to be isolated, let's try to make the best of it."

"We started our own garden, and we're raising six chickens. We're just sorta getting by day by day," Nasui told Insider. "We used to travel a lot. So this whole year later just looked a lot different than what we expected. I'm sure most of the world feels the same way."

"But we're OK," she added. "If we can get through this and this and this, we got this."

You can follow Nasui on Instagram.

If you are in the process of shopping for your wedding dress or have photos from when you shopped and want to talk to Insider for a story, get in touch at sgrindell@insider.com.

• Read more:
• Everything you need to know before shopping for a wedding dress
• A bride tried on 12 dresses before finding the one. Here are the gowns she looked at — and the one she chose.
• 2 brides shopped separately for their wedding dresses and ended up choosing styles that were the perfect match
• A bride tried on 13 wedding dresses before finding 2 that were perfect for her big day