Maldives Honeymoon, Honeymoon Maldives, the two words go together like horse and carriage, as Frank Sinatra might have had it. He actually sung that it was love and marriage and that describes a Maldives holiday perfectly too.

After the months of planning and organisation, the arguments and negotiations; after the ceremony and reception, the families and friends and relatives, what you need is just quiet and privacy for two, you two with a bit a bit of luxury and a view. I don’t think there’s another place on earth that does this quite as well as the Maldives.

On your island resort there is no town or village, there is nobody selling you sarongs or taxi excursions, nobody urging you to visit some nightclub or cultural attraction. There are no mountains or rivers or jungles or deserts. That there is seemingly so little on offer is what really helps calm the mind and allows you to enjoy what you came for, each other.

Holding hands along the beach, snorkeling side by side, a candlelit dinner, a champagne breakfast on a sandbank and watching the sunset together from your beach verandah or water villa jacuzzi. These are the sort of things that the Maldives does better than just about anywhere else on the planet.

Most resorts will put flowers and a fruit basket in your room on arrival. Some will put a bottle of wine for you too, and offer discounts on special dinners and spa treatments. This is the basic Maldives honeymoon package. To avail of it you first need to tell the resort or your travel agents that it’s your honeymoon and then have proof that you were married within the last 9 months (some resorts say 6 months, others 12).

Maldives luxury packages include a choice of special excursions for two, such as a sunset dolphin trip with champagne and canapes, a Robinson Island overnight in a log cabin and a candlelit dinner in a lonely lagoon served by a butler and personal chef.

The Maldives does not offer official weddings but most do offer a renewal of vows ceremony. This is often very charming and touching as the staff go all out to create a special setting, with arches and heart shaped topiary from local vegetation and flowers. They get dressed up in traditional clothes and sing to the beating bodu beru drums. A ‘village elder’ leads the ceremony in dhivehi, with a translation, and a certificate is signed and witnessed.

If you wish to have an officially recognised wedding then you should combine a Sri Lanka and Maldives honeymoon. That is, have the wedding in Sri Lanka, with a trip to the hills and the cultural sites, and then fly over for the romance of the Maldives, concluding with a renewal of vows ceremony to add the Maldives flourish.

Maldives honeymoon packages can be basic, luxury or combined with a Sri Lankan wedding but whatever your final choice trust me, you will never forget your honeymoon in Maldives.