It’s official: The Vow Room open for Spokane elopements

Big weddings aren’t for everyone.

Jade Leonetti, 43, remembers her elopement at the Spokane County Courthouse.

“I loved the courthouse; it was beautiful. We stood outside of the courthouse and took photos, and I felt like a princess and this is my castle,” she said. “But then the actual ceremony is in the building across the street that’s not cute, and it’s, like, gross. And you go through security, and they have to wand everybody, then you go to the courtroom and it’s OK, but it kind of smells, and scary stuff happens in there.”

She would have much sooner gone somewhere private but still elegantly decorated, with lighting lending to flattering photos and a space for her and her close friends and family to celebrate her new union.

She would have much sooner gone to the Vow Room – a business that she and her business partner Jonna Kelley, 46, opened together on Saturday.

With Spokane weddings costing around $30,000 on average and ending with a roughly 50% divorce rate, per Leonetti’s own research, many folks are looking for a simple and easy ceremony. Others just want a nontraditional experience for a second or third marriage.

“A lot of people are going into debt as a newly married couple because of their wedding, which puts a strain on the marriage,” Leonetti said. “We really look to them and are like, that’s just crazy. It’d be so great to just offer an option that is beautiful and thoughtful and romantic and sweet and all the things, but affordable.”

The Vow Room is a two-room venue offering a space for small, intimate weddings. There is a makeup room, an aisle and open space for catering or dancing. Curtains hang along the back wall, and crystal chandeliers are equipped with color changing lights to fit any theme. Notably, Kelley said the Vow Room will marry anybody who can legally be married – a service other venues don’t always offer.

“We’re still working out the legalities,” Leonetti said. “But we are down to marry anyone. All people.”

So far, the most popular package is $1,500 for a 12-guest reservation and a stylized space. Costs change depending on number of guests, which can range from four to 20, starting at $950 on the low end.

“It’s like the Vow Room wanted to become a thing, and we were just the right women for the job,” Leonetti wrote later in a email.

Kelley and Leonetti began as coworkers at KSPS PBS in 2024. Immediately, they clicked.

“It was amazing. She was really supportive of my creative ideas and just collaboration. I feel like we both have that as a strong suit, the collaborative working style,” said Kelley, the then-marketing director for the station. “And so she left, and I actually felt like I was in mourning a little bit.”

The pair knew that they would always have to work together in some capacity. A couple months after Leonetti left the station in the spring of 2025, she and Kelley began a newsletter and later a podcast called Covvn, which they describe online as “a creative dispatch for women in the middle of a plot twist.” Kelley described Leonetti as her business partner and “one of the best friends I’ve ever had.” As soon as Kelley pitched the idea of the Vow Room over a text, Leonetti was sold.

“She was not only like, ‘Yeah, I want to partner with you,’ but like, ‘Hey, I found us venues to go look at.’ She immediately took me seriously; it wasn’t silly to her,” Kelley said. “I’m getting choked up describing it to you, because it’s rare to have somebody believe in you that hard.”

For her part, Leonetti said that she had been thinking along the same lines as Kelley anyway, the two having joked about Kelley being an officiant before.

“In Spokane especially, there’s a lot of large venues, and there’s a lot of options for 200 guests or big parties – big events,” Leonetti said. “Well, we’re like, what about the people that don’t want to go to the courthouse and elope in a courtroom but don’t also want to spend $5,000 on a venue, or $10,000 on a venue, plus, right?”

The day after the text exchange, Leonetti and Kelley found the spot downtown that would bring their vision to life. After just around a month, 223 W. Riverside Ave., Suite 101, was theirs.

Beyond filling the Spokane micro-event niche, Leonetti and Kelley both see their business as part of an effort to revitalize downtown.

“Downtown was a big goal, because there is a crisis happening in our city, and so the answer is, you show up,” Kelley said.

Leonetti continued Kelley’s thought.

“Instead of moving away from these spaces, which we’ve seen happen with the downtown Spokane business community over the past few years,” she said, “we wanted to move in. We wanted to make sure that we were a presence here, you know, women-owned business providing something cool for the city, and model that for others.”

After only four days of being open, The Vow Room has scheduled multiple weddings for the coming months. They have also hosted a sound bath, led by Richelle Lee from Shala Living Yoga. Kelley said that they plan to market their space for all sorts of small events, both public and private. Clients have reached out about senior class reunions, company parties and dinner receptions so far, and Leonetti likes the idea of a movie night – maybe to watch “The Wedding Planner.”

In partnership with Petunia and Loomis, couples looking for a spooky elopement can be married at the Vow Room by the “sinister minister” through the end of October. Passersby on the first Friday of November might keep an eye out for a dog elopement, advertising a bonded pair up for adoption, though the event is not yet confirmed.

“There’s a lot of people who live down here. There are professionals and all kinds of people, and so they’re, like, coming home and walking their dogs and people are going out to dinner and it smells so good – it’s just amazing out,” Leonetti said. “There’s good people and food, and now there’s a cute little elopement venue.”