Peabody woman graces cover of wedding magazine

PEABODY – Finding a copy of this month’s issue of Premiere Bride magazine might be more difficult than usual for local wives-to-be, for one Peabody woman plans on snatching up quite a few.But, who could blame Dana Connor? After all, she is the beautiful bride gracing its glossy cover.The 24-year-old Lynn native married her high school sweetheart Rob Connor on a rather rainy and windy Sept. 5 at the Tewksbury Country Club. In true hurricane fashion, Hanna kindly arrived just in time to ruin their plans of outdoor pictures.”They were redoing all the photos at the Country Club and asked us beforehand to have our photo put up on a wall,” recalls Connor. “But, we weren’t able to get outside for any, so we didn’t get the money shot.”Their photographer, Adriano Batti, and the publishers of the national magazine, however, disagreed.”Dana was a very beautiful bride,” said Batti, who runs his own studio out of Medford. “She had a beautiful wedding gown and nice flowers. Everything was very nice.”Batti thought Connor made such a beautiful bride, in fact, that he submitted several photos of her dressed in a white strapless gown to the publishers at Premiere Bride. Connor had no idea.”At first, my photographer emailed me and said, ‘I told you 1,000 times you could be on the cover of a magazine, now what you would think if it came true?'” she said. “He told me I had a 50/50 chance of getting on the cover for January. Then, the next day, he told me I got it.””The publisher was surprised by this one picture,” said Batti. “He thought it would make a nice cover.”And the rest is for all visiting Massachusetts bridal shops and registries across the state to see. The issue hits stands today.Connor has long been told she could be a model, but never took it too seriously.”I (modeled) for Anne & Hope when I was 9 years old,” she said. “But, that was nothing?I was always kind of shy of that industry because it’s so rough.”She said she would, however, consider doing future bridal shoots, because what girl wouldn’t like to get dressed up in a wedding dress?”It’d be fun and I’d be making money,” she quipped.