German couple Frank and Heike Reestorff marked 25 years together in a way most anniversary couples would never consider: they got married on the seabed. Their ceremony took place at Maagiri Reef, off Villa Nautica in the Maldives, and was the resort's first-ever underwater wedding.
The couple, both experienced divers, had floated the idea with the diveOceanus team during a stay the previous November. When they returned for their third visit to the island, the team made it happen. The ceremony was staged on a sandy patch of the top reef, built around a heart-shaped frame with bubbles streaming up from nearby cylinders. Since chatting underwater isn't an option, their vows were engraved onto wooden plaques in German — plaques they took home afterwards.
It was a proper family affair. Their son and his girlfriend attended, plus two close friends who had never dived in their lives. Rather than leave them on the boat, the diveOceanus team put the pair through a Discover Scuba Diving course first so they could stand on the reef with everyone else. Officiating the whole thing was dive centre manager Mohamed Arzan, who earlier this year was named Diving Personality of the Year at the Hotelier Maldives Awards. The resort also captured the day on underwater cameras and by drone.
There's a pleasing backstory here: Frank and Heike weren't strangers picking a wedding venue from a brochure. They'd stayed twice before, knew the dive team, and came back with a plan they'd already discussed with the people who would run it. Heike was reportedly in tears at the sight of the underwater setup, and the couple's review was short — everything was perfect and beyond expectations.
For travellers, the wider point is that Villa Nautica is quietly building a case as one of the Indian Ocean's better romance properties. It has been nominated three years running (2023–2025) for Indian Ocean's Leading Honeymoon Resort at the World Travel Awards, made National Geographic Traveller's Luxury Collection for 2025 and 2026, and its pool was named the Maldives' best at the Travel + Leisure Luxury Awards Asia Pacific in both 2025 and 2026.
The story also reflects a broader trend across Maldives resorts: anniversary trips and vow renewals are booming, partly because many couples who married during 2020–2022 are staging the bigger celebration they never had, and partly because honeymooners increasingly delay travel until their first anniversary. Other properties are leaning into it too — Sun Siyam Iru Fushi now markets fully customised honeymoon experiences in Noonu Atoll, while Eri Maldives sells tiered vow-renewal packages starting from around £1,235.
If you're the sort of couple who measures milestones in logged dives rather than candlelit dinners, an underwater ceremony — or even a first taste of scuba through a resort discover-diving course — is a genuinely memorable way to do it.
