LADAKH REGION, India — In front of a tin-roofed house with the Himalaya Mountains rising behind it, about 300 wedding guests waited on a big green lawn, eager for the arrival of the bride and groom.

As the couple appeared, the guests formed a happy scrum around them, whisking them through the doorway and into the house. The rooms smelled of the coming feast: tandoori chicken, salty tea, fresh rolls and succulent goat meat cooked in yogurt and spices.

But the bride’s entire family was conspicuously missing from the party.

The bride, Stanzin Saldon, is from a Buddhist family, and the groom, Murtaza Agha, is a Muslim. Both grew up in Ladakh, a remote region of Jammu and Kashmir State in India. So what happens around here when a Buddhist woman falls for a Muslim man? Chaos.

The young couple’s romance has spawned protests, shut down businesses, caused fistfights and pitted Muslim and Buddhist leaders against each other. The police have been forced to intervene, and so have the courts.