Cancellation and weather

The detail is below, and all of it matters. But if you read nothing else on this page, read this.

If it rains

We move to the nearest dry window on the same day. No charge.

If the day is lost

We move the ceremony to another day during your stay. No charge.

Weather and your deposit

Nobody loses a deposit to the weather. Ever.

If you cancel

Full refund within 14 days of paying the deposit. After that the 30% deposit is non-refundable and the balance is refundable up to 30 days before.

If we cancel

Everything you have paid us comes back, deposit included.

Moving your date

Free once, with more than 30 days notice.

That is the whole promise, and the rest of this section is only an explanation of how it works in practice.

Rain in the Maldives is not northern European rain. It arrives as a squall, empties itself over twenty or forty minutes, and leaves behind a sky that photographs better than the one before it. A day that starts grey very often has a clear two-hour window in it, and part of our job is to find that window for you.

We publish this policy because we could not find one to read anywhere else. The operators and resort brochures we looked at do not say what happens if it rains, which leaves you to book a wedding in a monsoon climate and hope. We would rather you knew.

Together, by late morning on the day. You are not waiting for a phone call from someone you have never met.

• We watch the forecast from about three days out and tell you what we are seeing. No drama, just what the models say.
• On the morning itself we meet you, usually over breakfast, and look at the sky and the radar with you.
• By late morning we agree one of three things: go ahead as planned, move to a later slot the same day, or move to another day.
• The celebrant, the photographer and the setup team all work to that decision, so a move costs you nothing and costs us only a rearranged afternoon.

The final call is yours. If you want to stand on a beach in warm rain and say your vows, that is a real choice and some couples make it deliberately. We will tell you honestly what it will look like in the photographs, and then we will do whatever you decide.

Sometimes there is no window. The sky closes in and stays closed. When that happens, we move the ceremony to another day during your stay, at no charge.

• You pay nothing extra. Not for the celebrant, not for the photographer, not for the setup, not for the flowers.
• You lose no part of your deposit and no part of the balance.
• We rebuild the setup from scratch on the new day. It is the same ceremony, not a reduced one.
• If your stay is short and every remaining day is also lost, we refund the ceremony in full, deposit included.

This is the reason we ask you to arrive on Thoddoo at least a full day before your ceremony, and why a longer stay is worth more than a cheaper one. A five-night stay gives us four chances to find you a good evening. A two-night stay gives us one.

Plans change. Flights get rescheduled, work gets in the way, and sometimes a wedding at home moves and everything else moves with it.

More than 30 days before

Move your date once at no charge, subject to the new date being open. A second move costs USD 100.

30 days or less before

We will move it if we can, and we will tell you honestly whether we can. Any supplier cost we cannot recover is passed on to you at cost, with the invoice shown.

A higher-priced season

If the new date falls in a season that costs more, you pay the difference. If it costs less, we refund the difference.

Moving a date is not a cancellation, and moving it does not restart the 14-day refund window on your deposit.

Write to maldivesbeachwedding@gmail.com. The date we count from is the date your message reaches us, not the date you wrote it.

Within 14 days of paying the deposit

Everything back, in full, no questions and no reason required.

After 14 days, more than 30 days before the ceremony

The 30% deposit is not refunded. Anything you have paid beyond the deposit is refunded in full.

30 days or less before the ceremony

The deposit is not refunded. We refund the balance less any supplier cost already committed, and we show you what those costs were.

7 days or less before the ceremony

No refund. By this point the celebrant, the photographer and the setup are all committed and paid for.

The deposit is non-refundable after 14 days because it takes your date off the calendar. We hold one ceremony a day, and a held date turns away every other couple who wanted it.

If you cancel because of something covered by your travel insurance, ask us for a written statement of what you paid and when you cancelled. We will send it the same day.

If we cancel for any reason of our own — we double-booked, a supplier let us down, we made a mistake — you get back everything you have paid us, including the deposit, and we will also cover any non-refundable accommodation and transfer costs we booked on your behalf for those dates.

If the cancellation comes from something neither of us controls, such as a government restriction or a national day of mourning on which ceremonies do not take place, we will first offer you another date during your stay. If that is impossible, we refund everything you have paid us in full.

What we cannot refund in either case is money you paid to someone else. Flights and accommodation you booked yourself belong to the company you bought them from, which is why travel insurance matters.

The speedboat from Malé takes about ninety minutes and runs mid-morning and late afternoon. It is a small boat on open sea, and it does not sail in rough weather.

• If a delayed flight makes you miss the transfer, we move you to the next departure and we do not charge you for the seat you missed.
• If the sea closes and no boat sails, your ceremony moves to a day when you are on the island, at no charge.
• If the delay means you arrive after your ceremony date and nothing can be rearranged inside your stay, this counts as a cancellation with less than seven days notice. Your insurance is what covers you here, not us.

Arriving a full day early removes almost all of this risk, which is the single best piece of planning advice on this site.

If one of you is ill on the day, we move the ceremony within your stay at no charge, exactly as we would for weather. Tell us as early as you can so we can rearrange the team rather than stand them down.

If illness before you travel means you cannot come at all, the cancellation terms above apply. This is precisely what travel insurance is for, and we will give you whatever written evidence your insurer asks for.

Refunds go back by the same route the money came, to the same account. We cannot send a refund to a different person or a different account.

When we send it

Within 14 days of agreeing the refund with you.

Currency

United States dollars, the amount you paid us.

Bank charges

An international transfer may lose a small amount to intermediary bank fees. That part is outside our control and we cannot recover it for you.

Exchange rate

If you paid in another currency, your bank converts at its own rate on the day. A refund of the same dollar amount may not be the same amount in your currency.

This policy covers the ceremony and anything else you bought from us. It does not cover:

• Flights, wherever you bought them.
• Accommodation you booked yourself rather than through us.
• Any excursion, day trip or hire you arranged directly with someone on the island.
• Visa refusals, passport problems, or travel documents that are not in order.
• A change of heart about getting married, which we say only because a policy that pretends otherwise is not honest.

The terms of service set out the rest of the agreement, including prices, tax and how a booking is made.