Lakehouse Folk Elopement, Montville | Victoria & George’s Micro Wedding
July 17, 2026
Victoria & george’s secret hinterland micro wedding at the lakehouse folk
Some couples plan a wedding for a year and tell everyone they know before the invites even go out. Victoria and George did the opposite — they planned theirs quietly, told about ten people, brought their two kids along as the most important guests in the room, and got married overlooking Lake Baroon, Montville before flying home to the UK to do it all again, except by then they were already married.
This is a micro wedding at The Lakehouse Folk unlike any I’ve shot, and honestly, I’m still thinking about it
Getting Ready With the Kids in the Cottages
The morning started the way every good Montville morning should — soft light through the cottage windows, Lake Baroon just visible past the curtains, and the particular kind of chaos that happens when you’re getting two adults and two young kids ready for a wedding at the same time. Victoria caught her own reflection in an old arched mirror while she got dressed, a string of pearls and a bottle of perfume laid out on the dresser next to her rings, and down the hall George had his dad fixing his cufflinks and pulling him into one of those hugs that says more than either of them needed to say out loud.
The kids, somehow, were the calmest people in the house. There’s a shot from that morning of the two of them running hand in hand down the hill toward the lake, the little one clutching an ice bucket almost as big as he is, and it’s one of my favourites from the whole day — not because it’s pretty, but because it’s real. This wasn’t a wedding the kids got dressed up for and handed off to a babysitter. They were in it, the whole way through, and you can feel that in every frame from that morning.
A Love Story That Started at Oktoberfest
Victoria told me how she and George met and it’s one of those stories that sounds made up until you hear the details — they met in Victoria’s first 24 hours of living in Australia, at Oktoberfest in St Kilda, Melbourne, back in October 2016. Whatever it is that makes two people find each other on day one in a brand new country, they had it.
George, it turns out, is a planner in the most romantic sense of the word — he asked Victoria’s dad for permission over a year before he actually proposed, then built a whole surprise trip around it. And then Melbourne went into lockdown. And lockdown again. The trip kept getting cancelled and rebooked as COVID dragged on, month after month, until George finally got his moment on Whitehaven Beach — and by every account, it was worth every single delay.
A Ceremony With Just 10 of Their Closest People
Victoria and George kept this entire day a secret. No wedding hashtag, no save-the-date months out, just a quiet decision between the two of them and a short list of maybe ten people who actually knew what was happening. There’s something about a couple who has the option to invite a hundred people and chooses ten instead — it tells you everything about what they actually wanted this day to feel like.
The ceremony happened on the open lawn above the lake, hinterland ridgelines rolling out behind them, a small row of chairs for the handful of guests trusted enough to be let in on the secret. Their two kids sat right up front. No performance, no audience beyond the people who genuinely needed to be there — just two people finally doing the thing George had been quietly planning since before the world shut down.
Golden Hour Vows Under the Veil
Once the ceremony wrapped, we had the whole lawn and the last of the light to ourselves — Victoria’s veil catching the breeze on the hilltop, George pulling it back for a quiet moment, foreheads together, before the kissing photos and the running-across-the-grass shots that somehow always end up being everyone’s favourites. The lake and the hinterland did most of the heavy lifting in the background. I just had to keep up.
Champagne Towers, a Slideshow & a Toast From Everyone Who Knew
With a guest list this small, the reception felt more like a dinner party than a wedding — a tower of champagne coupes catching the last of the evening light on the table, the whole group raising a glass together as the sun dropped behind the hills. Later, everyone gathered to watch the wedding video Victoria and George’s videographer, Will from Finley Films, had put together, along with a slideshow of the day’s photos. Ten people who’d kept a secret for months, finally watching it all play back in front of them. That’s a moment you can’t stage, no matter how hard you try.
Two Weddings, One Marriage
Here’s the part that makes this whole day even better: Victoria and George are both from the UK, and not long after their Lakehouse Folk ceremony, they flew home and had a second wedding with the rest of their family and friends. By the time they walked down that aisle, they were already legally married — this quiet hinterland afternoon in Montville was the real thing, paperwork and all. The UK wedding was for everyone else. This one was just for them.
About The Lakehouse Folk, Montville
If a quiet, small-scale wedding like Victoria and George’s sounds like your kind of day, The Lakehouse Folk Elopements in Montville is genuinely one of the best Sunshine Coast hinterland venues to build it around. A few real facts if you’re considering it: ceremony space for up to 30 guests and an evening celebration for up to 20, two cottages on-site sleeping up to 10 people total, both overlooking Lake Baroon, packages starting from $1,000 for the venue itself, and private grounds across 10 acres purpose-built for exactly this kind of day.
If you’re planning something similar with kids involved — build in extra time before the ceremony. The getting-ready morning is where they’re most relaxed, and it makes for some of the least-posed, most honest photos of the whole day.
Find out more about The Lakehouse Folk, Montville
Lakehouse Folk Elopement Photographer
Hey, I’m Nicci — a Sunshine Coast hinterland elopement and micro wedding photographer, and before this I spent ten years as a paramedic in the Sydney CBD, which honestly might be why I don’t rattle easily on a wedding day.
I love a day exactly like Victoria and George’s — small, a little secretive, entirely built around the people who actually matter. If you’re dreaming up your own Lakehouse Folk elopement, or still working out whether an elopement or a micro wedding is the right shape for your day, feel free to contact me.
Ready to start planning? Get in touch here, or explore my elopement packages.
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