Of Love and Bison: Elopements in Yellowstone

Of Love and Bison: Elopements in Yellowstone

Yellowstone is sacred ground in the truest sense.

For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples recognized the spiritual power of this land. The geysers. The thermal pools. The way the earth visibly breathes steam into the sky. This wasn’t scenery. This was living proof of forces larger than human understanding.

When you stand at the edge of a hot spring, you’re standing above a supervolcano. The earth is alive beneath you—molten, churning, creating and destroying and creating again. I felt this monumental power the first time I visited when I was 5 years old, and I’ve been honoring it ever since.

My First Wedding

My First Wedding

One of the most common questions I get from the guests at a wedding is “How did you start doing this?” My guess is that no one probably grows up thinking they are going to be a wedding officiant, myself included. If I could have predicted that when I moved to Bozeman in my mid-twenties that I would be frolicking in the mountains while working a fun, creative job, I would have told myself I was crazy. And I would have been right.