is helping engaged couples have a more meaningful and authentic wedding.
is to help you abandon fancy truffles and monogrammed towels and donate to conserve Montana’s incredible open lands.
is to help you protect Montana for future generations.
"As a native Montanan, I was lucky to grow up with wide open spaces, visible from even the urban areas. Both Scott and I believe in the emotionally restorative value of nature; it's calming, invigorating, uplifting, and awe-inspiring, all at the same time.We knew we wanted to marry in a Montana open space for those reasons. We also knew that maintaining the very open spaces that draw us--and others--to Montana requires financial and organizational support. Rather than ask for gifts, we decided to ask our friends and family to donate to organizations that were important to us, and Weddings for Open Land became an obvious choice. It was our honor to support this innovative conservation organization."
"Wedding days mark a big moment in a couple's life. When we decided to get married in Montana, we wanted our wedding and life together to be about something greater than ourselves. We both moved west in search of the outdoors, and it is in these beautiful places that we fell in love. We gave to Weddings For Open Land to preserve open space in Montana and give back to the state that we got married in--preserving the beautiful places we love."
"Montana has always been an adventure to me. Because of it’s wide open spaces, the adventures here are limitless. Keeping these open lands limitless for future generation is why I stand behind Weddings for Open Land. Weddings and Montana go hand in hand, who doesn’t want to get married here? Weddings for Open Land gives Montana brides and grooms the opportunity to protect these lands that are so very close to their hearts.”
“As a teenager who grew up blasting the Dixie Chicks' Wide Open Spaces on repeat, the significance of making Montana home is not lost on her.”
Nine years ago from a multicolored hostel in the capital of Slovenia, Tori Pintar was backpacking around the world when she realized the only walls enclosing her were the ones she made for herself. Ever since, it’s been her passion to constantly get outside of her comfort zone and inspire others to do the same.
After five years as a sometimes-award-winning wedding photographer, she realized that couples weren’t having the weddings they wanted, they were having the weddings that Style Me Pretty and Pinterest told them to. As a teenager who grew up blasting the Dixie Chicks' Wide Open Spaces on repeat, the significance of making Montana home is not lost on her.
Weddings for Open Land is an opportunity to merge her desire to help couples have the meaningful wedding of their dreams with her own dream of protecting the endless open lands in Montana for all generations to come.
Wild and car sick. The words that come to mind when I think of my first trip to Montana. But mostly wild.
I was ten and we were on a family vacation. A cherished road trip of the Griswold order that was equal parts amazing and misery. We bought every item that REI had to offer from the camping section, over-packed our station wagon and set off for Glacier National Park. The roads were winding and we drove F-O-R-E-V-E-R. I felt sick for almost every mile and about ten in decided we should probably cancel our trip. Then I looked out the window and I saw Montana for the first time.
When we arrived at Lake MacDonald, my misery evaporated. We had arrived somewhere special. A place unlike any other. We had found a place with it’s own palpable, unmistakable magic.
Sixteen years later I found myself standing outside the Bozeman airport on a -10 degree day with one suitcase and a plan to spend the winter in Montana. Seven winters later, I’m still here. On that first day of temporary residency, I saw a sticker donning Montana’s silhouette with the text ‘Travelers for Open Land’ written within its borders. I learned that this was a nonprofit set up with the ambition of preserving the views I was ogling from the car windows at that very moment. However, the fund had struggled to catch on. The idea was to collect $1 from every visitor to Montana which at the time was about a million each year. Imagine all the land conservation made possible by something as simple as collecting a dollar from each traveler.
Five years ago, I started a wedding photography business and I noticed that brides and grooms were traveling from afar to celebrate their marriages in Montana. They were doing it for the same reasons we live and vacation here—the open spaces. Would brides and grooms want to do something to protect the ground they chose to stand on and say 'I Do' for future generations? This question turned into what you see here today.
Weddings are a funny thing. Momentous, emotional, happy, crazy, stressful, formal, informal, traditional… The options for the style, size, shape, format, and mood of your wedding are endless. There's also the notion that you need a lot of 'stuff' from favors to decor to your registry. Spend five minutes on Pinterest and you know what I mean. We believe you want a wedding day that's about more than things. You want a wedding that in every single way honors who you are and the love you have for one another AND the love you have for your friends and family. We created Weddings for Open Land with you in mind. We’re here to help you say no to truffles and towels and say yes to having a celebration that’s just you.
With love,
Tori Pintar, co-founder
“We wanted our celebration to live up to our values: we wanted it uncluttered and meaningful.”
Inspired by wild places and witness to the loss of open land from Montana to the Serengeti, the Pacific northwest to Mongolia (and beyond...), Kate has dedicated her career to conservation and outdoor education.
An ecologist and writer by training, her passion for empowering people to engage - with wild places, with different perspectives, with the very real impacts of our choices - led her deep into the non-profit world. She has directed stewardship for the Gallatin Valley Land Trust, guided for National Geographic, written for the Wildlife Conservation Society, directed programs for BioRegions International and consulted for non-profits from Alaska to Arizona.
A dozen years before meeting Tori, Kate and her husband Peter made the largest donation they’d ever made. “We wanted our celebration to live up to our values: we wanted it uncluttered and meaningful.” She is excited to help others to do the same, and in the process, to help conserve Montana’s incredible open lands for future generations.