A Christian prayer begins the ceremony. Amen. Then a bridesmaid reads the “Buddhist Litany for Peace.” I count two pairs of cowboy boots, including the groom’s, and 5 pairs of flip-flops. As the 115 guests throw rose petals, Brooke and Gunnar walk down the aisle to a fiddler and a guitarist singing Bob Marley’s “One Love.”

During the reception, guests sip organic wine: Ten Spoon Range Rider, from a Montana vineyard. Others down Moose Drools. After a dinner of venison, there’s wedding cake and a slideshow of Brooke and Gunnar together on mountaintops.

For every classic wedding staple like dancing, there is the not-so-classic midnight trip to the rope swing. But the bonfire burning under the three-quarters moon heralds the new generation of young Montanans, drawn by the promise of an outdoor life in empty spaces. When the lodge was built in 1924, those migrating to Montana were coming for work in the Seeley-Swan sawmills or in the Butte mines. Today, many come not for the bounty of the land, but for the beauty.
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