Getting married on an island

A destination wedding here is smaller, hotter and more weather-dependent than the same wedding at home, and those three facts drive every decision worth making.

Getting ready happens in a villa, not a suite

Your room is the bridal suite. It is also usually wood-lined, warm, and lit by one window. That window is the whole ballgame — hair and makeup should be set up beside it, facing it, not with their back to it.

Tell your resort you want the villa with the most daylight, not the biggest one. It will do more for your photographs than any other single choice.

The ceremony hour is a weather decision

Four in the afternoon is the usual slot and it is usually right: the heat has broken, the light is turning, and you have time to be photographed afterwards before dark. Earlier than three and your guests will be uncomfortable in formal clothes. Later than five and you lose the light for the group photographs.

Have a wet-weather location agreed in writing before the day. The Maldives does not do drizzle — it does twenty spectacular minutes and then sunshine — but those twenty minutes will not wait for a committee.

Guests arrive on somebody else's schedule

Seaplanes stop flying at dusk and speedboats run on tides and weather. Anyone arriving on the wedding day is a risk; anyone arriving the evening before is not. Build a day of slack into the front of the trip, not the back.

The things worth photographing that are not the ceremony

Island weddings are short. The day around them is where the photographs live.

• The walk down the jetty — the single most Maldivian frame there is
• A sunset session for just the two of you, twenty minutes, away from everyone
• The dinner, which on a small island is usually the whole guest list at one long table
• Morning-after portraits in the dress, on an empty beach, with nobody watching

Legalities, briefly

Weddings held in the Maldives are celebratory rather than legally binding for most non-Muslim couples, so nearly everyone signs the paperwork at home first and comes here for the day itself. Your resort will tell you exactly what it needs and when. Ask early; the answer varies by island.