By Travis Gettys
Enquirer contributor

Leanne Golden, owner of Kitty Catz Beauty Boutique, arranges lipsticks for her display at the Madison Wedding Connection. The vendor showcase is the first Wednesday of each month. The Cincinnati Enquirer/PATRICK REDDY

COVINGTON - Couples have long been able to buy engagement and wedding rings at pawn shops on Madison Avenue, but they'll have more options now that Tiffany & Co. has joined vendors at a monthly wedding show.

The New York-based jeweler for the first time joined about 50 wedding-related businesses Wednesday at the Madison Wedding Connection, which has started a movement toward a specialized shopping district.

The banquet facility will soon anchor a shopping district for couples planning their weddings, an idea Jessica Kern, a Thomas More College graduate student, developed by studying similar developments in other cities.

The city has approved $300,000 in streetscape improvements for the district, which will eventually stretch between Sixth and Eighth streets. Residents and business owners can comment July 14 at 6 p.m. at the Madison and July 29 at 6 p.m. in city commission chambers.

The Madison started the monthly bridal shows about a year ago and attendance has grown along with the number of vendors.

The showcase for vendors including photographers, limousine services and florists, was developed last year by Kern, who is now director of the Madison wedding district.

"She did such a great job we hired her," said Jim Salyers, who owns the Madison. It holds the event the first Wednesday of each month at 700 Madison Ave.

Salyer said 30 to 50 brides show up each month to talk with wedding specialists and enjoy free cocktails and snacks, and afterward they can sample some of the food the Madison serves at receptions.

"It's more of a relaxed version of those big bridal shows," Kern said.

The atmosphere resembles a wedding reception more than a sales convention, with people sipping champagne as percolating electrofunk fills the room and colorful disco lights spin.

Tim Black of Alexandria admitted his fiancee, Gale Gray, also of Alexandria, had to drag him to the Wedding Connection, but he said he was surprised by the low-pressure environment.

"I didn't realize we could just walk around and look," Black said.

The Madison will expand the showcase Sunday with a brunch from 1 to 4 p.m., with the possibility of quarterly events in the future.

A vacant building at 630 Madison Ave. is undergoing renovation and will open early next year as a wedding mall, Kern said, with room for about 15 tenants.

The building at 601 Madison Ave. that houses Fabulous-Furs, owned by Salyers' wife, Donna, has been refurbished to accommodate a bridal gown shop, while Fabulous-Furs will move to another location in Covington.

"It's just ideal for that kind of store," Kern said. "It's a huge, open area with street-level windows."

Other buildings in the proposed district share similar architectural characteristics, Kern said, which encourage pedestrian shopping.

"They have a historical charm you just can't get other places," she said.

The area could look like a smaller version of the wedding district a few miles away in Reading, which boasts more than 30 wedding-oriented businesses, but city officials there aren't concerned about the impact of a competing retail destination nearby.

"It might help both of us," said Bud Elmlinger, Reading's safety service director.

Elmlinger, who holds the city's top administrative position, said people come from all over the world to shop at stores like Bridal and Formal, which stocks more than 4,000 wedding gowns in its three-building location at 300 Benson St.

"If people are coming from out of town, they might spend one day here and one day there," Elmlinger said.

Covington Mayor Butch Callery said the two shopping districts are too far away to be in direct competition - not that it matters.

"Brides go all over looking for deals," Callery said.