Plenty of couples over the years have asked Jess Szabo, one of the people behind Rumble House, if they could rent out the space to get married.
But in Szabo’s heart, she always wanted to be the first person to get married there.
On Wednesday night, she did.
“When Jess first suggested it, it was kind of like a joke. Like, where are we gonna get married? I’d say ‘oh at the Rumble House’ and people would laugh,” said Rich Théroux, co-owner of Rumble House.
Jess Szabo said in her heart she wanted to be the first person to wed at Rumble House. Photo by Andrew Bolton.
“And then the more we thought what a marriage means, what we wanted to do with it, we kept thinking it was the most authentic place for us.”
“There’s people that have been following this journey since before we even knew.”
Théroux was getting ready to open a downtown art studio, while also working as a teacher when he met Szabo.
“He asked what I was doing on Wednesday nights for the foreseeable future,” said Szabo.
“So we started the first gallery called Gorilla House.”
The idea was to combine an art studio and gallery into one. On Wednesday nights, artists had two hours to create a piece before they’re auctioned off to the public. Szabo said she and Théroux were just good friends running the space together.
Eventually, Gorilla House would grow to become Rumble House. Théroux said somewhere in between that transition the two became partners.
“The biggest reason we decided to have our wedding at Rumble House was because there’s people that have been following this journey since before we even knew,” said Théroux.
Wedding with a side of art at Rumble House
Théroux and Szabo exchanged their vows on the roof of Rumble House Wednesday night. The rest of the evening was like any other Wednesday night at the studio – with one difference.
“We’ve had a rumble every Wednesday for the last 326 Wednesdays in a row. So we usually start the rumble out with a theme where we’re spinning the wheel and coming up with three ideas,” said Théroux.
“We’re going to skip the wheel this week because we’re getting married instead.”
As artists Théroux says they’re always looking into the meaning of things. So when they looked up the number 326, they found “service” held a meaning to the number. They decided to make that the theme of the wedding – and art night.
“We’ll be serving people food, we work at this place for free to keep the community together and we’re serving each other,” said Théroux.
“I bet there’s people that don’t even notice there’s a wedding, they’re just busy digging away at their art.”
