Advice on planning my honeymoon!

Hi everyone,

I am planning my honeymoon for June 2024 and wanted everyone’s advice. Sorry if this ends up a bit long but I just want it to go absolutely perfectly for my wife to be 🙂

For some background, my wife and I (M) will be getting married in June of next year. We are both muslim so we aren’t able to be alone and have secluded contact before marriage. To add to this, it will be my fiancée’s second real holiday ever. Being that it will be our first time alone and also our first trip together, I want it to go perfectly for her but this is where doing so gets difficult. The whole honeymoon is going to be a surprise to her so I have no help planning (this is how we both want it because she wants to be surprised but also hates planning). This means I have some indication of what she wants from previous discussions but can’t get any real confirmation from her. She also has no dream destinations after me asking on a few different occasions (well if she does, she won’t tell me loll)

My initial ideas so far are 4 nights in the Maldives and 7 nights in Istanbul. We are from the UK so flights will probably come to approx £2k. I am looking into accommodation to get a better understanding and am thinking maybe £2.5k in the Maldives and £1.5k for Turkey… total budget being around 6k (but can move around a bit up to 7ish)

The reasons I’ve gone with the above destinations is they are Muslim countries… you can easily source halal food from both and the environment is the kind of vibe we both like. I think we can also get some really nice accommodation with private hot tubs/pools for a decent price (which is amazing because she can dress how she wants and wouldn’t have to worry about being seen). If you have any recommendations on places to stay within these countries please let me know

So I guess i just have a few questions

The worry for me is that there is a lot of travelling there and that might end up being too much based on how long we’re staying? Also, is there actually much to do in the Maldives… I worry it may get boring there, although it is the start of our trip so I’m sure we will have a lot of time just in the villa.

Are my dates okay for the durations of the stays? Would you recommend any other locations instead and why?

Please give all the tips and tricks you can for honeymoon planning

Thank you in advance, I appreciate all the advice!