Meet the Winner of the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest

Van Tran spent three weeks brainstorming and creating a couture-inspired wedding plus size formal dresses in her Brooklyn apartment. After approximately 100 hours of work (Tran spent 4-5 hours a day working on her design), 10 toilet paper rolls, and $80 worth of tape, hot glue, and glitter glue, Tran became the winner of the 12th annual Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest presented by Cheap-Chic-Weddings and Charmin.

The grand prize included $10,000 and a trip for two to any Ripley's Believe it Or Not! museum in the U.S. Tran's dress was also shipped to a Ripley's warehouse in preparation for display.

photos:http://www.marieprom.co.uk/vintage-prom-dresses

"I'm so amazed that my dress is in a museum," Tran, 25, told NBC News of her dress, which will soon grace the halls of a Ripley's Believe It or Not! museum. "It feels one step closer to achieving my dreams."

Tran said she came up with the concept of her toilet paper dress, which she named "Winter Lust," following a massive blizzard the year after she moved from Cypress, California, to New York.

"[It] was the first year touching snow ever," she said. "I thought, 'Wouldn't it be awesome if someone got married in a snowstorm?'"

Since winning the contest last month, Tran said her phone has been buzzing nonstop with calls from friends and family congratulating her on her win which made national and international headlines. She's even had multiple offers from friends asking her to design their own wedding and bridesmaid dresses in the future.

"Someone was like, 'I can't believe you made a wedding dress out of toilet paper. It actually looks like a wedding dress,'" she said.

This is Tran's second time entering the Toilet Paper Wedding Dress Contest, but her first time showing at the final runway event, held at the Haven Rooftop at the Sanctuary Hotel in New York in June. Entrants were judged on five categories: originality, beauty, creativity, the use of toilet paper, and workmanship.

Before the final show, the thought of a toilet paper dress malfunction or disaster on the runway had crossed Tran's mind too many times. It took a few minutes to shake off the anxiety and focus on the fact that she had just created a design that she was proud of, even if she didn't take home the grand prize.

"It was such an adrenaline rush of 20 seconds that I live for in my design career," she said.

Born in Vietnam and raised in California (Tran immigrated to the U.S. in 1993, at the age of 3, with her family), Tran said she never knew the value of space until she moved to her Brooklyn apartment, which currently functions as both a living space and her creative design studio �" a reminder of her childhood.

"When I was growing up, I had to share small bedrooms with sisters. We had bunk beds," Tran said. "My sisters would get mad every time I would sew because she would step on pins and yell at my mom and say I need my own room."

Read more:http://www.marieprom.co.uk/plus-size-prom-dresses