Having pre wedding shoot in Maldives is a dream for any couple who love nature so much. Since this Maldives has been nominated as a country who has one of the best beach in the world, they used to be a destination wedding and honeymoon places for celebrity and athletes such as Christiano Ronaldo – Irina Shayk, David – Victoria Beckham, and Kate Moss and Jamie Hince.
In fact Maldives will give you tons of amazing experience and 5 star hospitality that everyone dreaming for their entire life. Here you can walk down on the white sand beach, snorkeling in a crystal clear sea water, till get the best spa from each resort that you stayed in.
Dear all romantic couple wherever you are thank you for visiting my photography blog and read my story here. I’m Bima by the way. During past 10 years I dedicate my self to be destination wedding photographer who serve and focusing in pre wedding and wedding photo shoot. I feel so honor when I’ve found an email from someone who asking me to document their sweet memories on their big day.
By the way I lived in a beautiful tropical country called Indonesia, it’s a country where Bali located and I’ve been regularly fly to do pre wedding shoot in Maldives. So today I’m gonna share to you what Maldives looks like and what I did for having fun with my couple on their wedding day.
Introduction about Maldives
From any website or travel blog that you read, visiting Maldives very simple but before that I suggest you to check the Maldives Visa just to make sure that you;re coming from a country that able to come in free visa. No matter where you are there are a lot of airlines, for sure they coming with economy and business class, that you can use to get joy flight to this paradise.
Today I used jetradar to check the ticket price and schedule than book my resort by using booking.com.
Here you will landed in Velana International Airport which is formerly known as Ibrahim Naser International Airport. If you willing to see the local life than I suggest you to go to Male City the capitol of Maldives with 10 minutes ride on boat cost 10 rufiyaa.
Down here I’m gonna share 4 useful tips that you can consider before having pre wedding shoots in Maldives.
1 – Best Period for Having pre wedding shoot in Maldives
June to November will be Your Best Period
For some reason may all resorts in Maldives will fully booked by visitor who coming from Middle East and Europe cause in they got their day-off and choosing Maldives for their chosen destination. Through here you can imagine when all rooms that is cost over than USD800/night or above will fully booked within a minutes, the worst thing is all price will increase tragically.
If you want to make your journey more efficient so come to Maldives during June to November will be the best period, here you can celebrate your lovely memories in wedding or engagement just like my past couple had. I’ve been to Maldives twice and stay in two outstanding resort called Lux South Ari Atoll and Angsana Velavaru. Both of them are truly great resort with 5 star hospitality standard that will give you amazing experiences.
Once you want to see my complete engagement and wedding images, I welcoming you to visit my portfolio where all the beautiful memories from the best couple located.
speed boat to Lux*
2 – Find Your Best Photographer
Number two that you must concern before having pre wedding shoot in Maldives is find your best photographer. Finding the best person isn’t easy cause you have to browse and compare between 2 to 3 photographers that suit on your heart. All you need to remember is you fly thousand miles and spend couple nights in Maldives is to get the best images that represent your love and journey, so you definitely need to concern about this such photography thing.
Once you compare the photographers and found the best one than you need to know him personally cause having only good pictures isn’t enough, you must found the your best friend that able to help you to create outstanding pictures that means to you for the next decades.
Good photographer will not only taking a pictures of you but they must be your friend, you can say hi, you can say happy birthday or even more words that looks so personal and this gonna be the most important thing from all of these thing.
We still become a good friend with Billy and Dickie and they invite us to get special dinner in downtown Hong Kong when I have another photo shoot there
When I decide to work with my wife, I just want to make sure that my couple is handle by the most trusted person that I know. Some photographer has their own make up artist or assistant but for me, the only person that I really trust in my entire life is my wife. She knows as well for what I’m did in this business over than 10 years and she definitely want to make sure that our studio delivered only the best result for our couple.
Some photographer has their own make up artist or assistant but for me, the only person that I really trust in my entire life is my wife
In the same time when I serve pre wedding shoot in Maldives for our Hong Kong couple, my wife receive a whatsapp from our Singaporean couple who want to bring us to Maldives next year and they really worry about prices of foods, spa, and some other variable costs in the resort. I don’t know what to do but my wife definitely know what she must do.
Nina taking so many photos like this just to make our next couple feel better due to variable rates in the resot
She’s taking a cellphone and take a snap shot for all the menus on my room, she’s taking photos from the appetizer till the main course and from the spa till the diving rates. Once she get all the rates than she just texted it to our couple just to make sure that they feel better and know exactly all the costs from someone who directly in Maldives.
3 – Book Your Hotel As Soon As Possible
How to Chose Your Hotel in Maldives
There are hundred of 5 star hotel in Maldives that you can book to be your wedding venue so let me give you with some variable that you can use to choose only the best for your big day:
- If you already have a dream hotel than book it – Dream is a thing that you must achieve so when you already have your own dream hotel or resort than just book it immediately.
- Far hotel will cost more money – When you want to book hotel which is far from the airport than you must pay extra cost for the hotel transfer. Short distance in Maldives (5 – 7 km) will simply serve with speed boat which is the cheapest hotel transfer but if you book hotel which is far from the airport (mine is 180km from airport) than you have to go by double propeller seaplane that will cost almost US$500/person for return
- Try to ask upper level room – Several hotels will give you some privilege if you book it in the right time and book over than 2 or 3 nights. Just like what our couple did, they got water villa room (this is the most expensive room) with standard rate cause they book it for a week.
- Once you love it than book it immediately – Don’t waste your time by comparing hotel and you definitely can book by your self, I mean without travel agent. As I said before me and my couple used to book the hotels in Maldives by ourself and we used to book with booking.com cause a lot of feature like pay later, pay on arrival etc by using this platform
Best Platform to Book Hotels in Maldives
I surely suggest you to book all the hotel by your self, it is pretty simple and as long as you got a credit card than you can book it immediately. I want to share some story where my couple must change their hotel cause their travel agent too late to book the hotel and it take us to move to another resort where we belong to for pre wedding shoot in Maldives.
Booking.com is one of the best platform that you can use to book hotels, apartment, resorts, or any private unit around the world. I love how they serve us with various feature and facilities and this platform used to help me both for leisure with family and for business purposes.
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4 – Protect Your Self with Insurance
Before I fly for pre wedding shoot in Maldives I read so many travel blog and news about this paradise and here I’m gonna share some bad situation where I got chicken pox during the photo shoot.
It was really bad to get this disease while I have to do under water photo shoot in the sea, all my body is really painful but I still need to do it to create great images to my couple. All I need you to know is having travel insurance is really matters, if you already have your own than you’ll be fine but if you don’t have it than using worldnomads online travel insurance can help you as well.
What I did to solve this chicken pox is I have to go to the nearest hospital in Male City up in the midnight, I spend about US$150 for this while I only need to pay less than US$10 here in my town cause chicken pox is common disease that always happen to all people in my country. Paying US$180 in cash is really ridiculous cause through this amount I can get full body spa for me and my wife.
Actually hospital in Maldives will give you their best services but when you come there just as a tourist (not as Maldivian or working visa man) than there is no privilege at all. Common hospital will just asking you to pay a standard package which is cost around USD130 just to see the doctor (not a specialist for sure) and they will telling you that the price is include your medicine but once you come out from the doctor’s room they will asking you more USD50 to get your medicine (in fact they already tell you that the medicine is include).
So once again I remind you to prepare your travel insurance before you go.
One Thing That You Must Consider is Try to Spend 1 Night in Male City, It is Incredible!
Male City is the capitol of Maldives which separate about 1 km from the island where the Velana International Airport. Male City is a small area but every single culture that you will see is very interesting. Some shops also suddenly close when they hear praying voice called Adzan, it just because 100% of Maldivian is a Moslem.
The food is just like what Indian had so you can get biryani rice, curry, prata bread, and other delicious typical Indian food. Maldivian have their own tradition for not eat to much in dinner so their main menu for dinner is just a bread, cookies, some fried snacks and juice or soft drink cause they prefer to eat a lot on lunch time.
Anyway thank you for ready my story about pre wedding shoot in Maldives, I hope it helps you to prepare your destination wedding photo shoot before your marriage. In some case you love my works and want to discuss more with me than simply drop me a message and I will reply as soon as possible. I’ll keep writing about Maldives here in my blog so see you soon guys!