What deposit do Fiji resorts ask for a wedding?

Only three publish a figure on their own site: Mana Island Resort requires 30% non-refundable within 14 days of reservation confirmation, Musket Cove 25% non-refundable on booking, and VOMO Island 50% within 30 days of confirming the wedding date. Every other Fiji resort we checked publishes no deposit figure and handles terms privately.

Is a Fiji wedding deposit refundable?

Where terms are published, no. Mana and Musket Cove both state their deposits are non-refundable, and Musket Cove makes the balance non-refundable from 60 days out as well. VOMO does not state either way. No resort states in its published terms whether the deposit is credited against the package total, so confirm that in writing.

Can you move a Fiji wedding to another date?

Possibly, but no Fiji resort publishes a date-transfer or postponement clause, so there is no default position to rely on. Ask for one transfer at no fee to any date within 18 months, with the deposit carried across, and get it in the contract before you pay. This is the most valuable clause to negotiate.

What happens to a Fiji wedding deposit if a cyclone hits?

Three resorts publish force majeure clauses and they protect the resort's obligations rather than your money. Mana's wedding contract states full cancellation charges apply, and Malolo and Likuliku state guests are not entitled to a refund for unused nights. Wedding insurance, not the contract, is what carries this risk.

When is final payment due for a Fiji wedding?

Mana takes the balance 45 days before arrival along with the rooming list, while Musket Cove and VOMO both take it 60 days before arrival. Yatule publishes full payment at least one month prior. Accommodation terms often differ from wedding terms at the same property, so check which deadline applies to which part of the bill.

Are there minimum guest numbers on Fiji wedding packages?

Some publish them. Outrigger Fiji sets a minimum of 30 and maximum of 100 guests on its Dream Wedding, Matamanoa publishes a FJD 3,375 minimum charge with no substitution or price reduction, and Musket Cove requires at least 75% of guests to stay at the resort. VOMO requires all wedding guests to be accommodated on the island.

What happens if your guest numbers drop after you have paid a deposit?

Only Mana publishes an answer, and it is unfavourable: "Any amendments, for instance a decrease in number of rooms etc, same cancellation conditions will be applied." A shrinking block is treated as a cancellation and priced as one. Negotiate a guest-count band with repricing rather than penalties before you sign.

Fiji Wedding Deposits and Cancellation Terms: What to Negotiate

Three Fiji resorts publish real wedding deposit and cancellation terms. We checked twenty-one. And not one of the twenty-one publishes a date-transfer clause — the single clause that matters most in a country with a cyclone season. Here is what is actually published, what it means for your money, and the five things to settle before you sign.

Which Fiji resorts publish their deposit terms?

These are the only wedding deposit and payment terms published on a Fiji resort's own current website.

Resort	Deposit	When it is due	Final payment
Mana Island Resort	30%, non-refundable	"within 14 days of the reservation confirmation or the reservation will automatically be cancelled"	With the rooming list, 45 days before arrival
Musket Cove	25%, non-refundable	"upon booking"	60 days before arrival, "and is non-refundable"
VOMO Island Fiji	50%	"within 30 days of confirmation of wedding date"	"no later than 60 days prior to arrival"

That is the entire published market. Outrigger Fiji, Shangri-La Yanuca Island, Warwick Fiji, InterContinental Fiji, the Sheraton, the Westin, Hilton Fiji, Tokoriki, Lomani, Matamanoa, Nanuku, Koro Sun, Yatule, Wellesley, Daku, Leleuvia and Plantation Island publish no deposit figure at all. The pattern among the international brands is consistent: an enquiry form, then a contract sent privately. That is not sinister, but it does mean you cannot compare terms before you are in a sales conversation — which is precisely when comparing is hardest.

A few publish fragments worth having. Yatule Resort & Spa publishes only two timing rules — final guest count "at least two months prior" and full payment "at least one month prior to wedding date" — and the brochure link on its own wedding page currently returns a 404. Musket Cove splits its accommodation deposit by size: under five rooms takes "a deposit equal to one night per room", five or more triggers the 25% rule.

What does the cancellation scale actually look like?

Only Mana publishes anything resembling a scale, and it has two steps rather than a ladder:

"All cancellation 45 days and prior will be subject to cancellation fee equivalent to the deposit paid"
"Cancellation less than 45 days – 100 % entire arrangements shall be charged"
"No-show or premature departure – 100 % entire arrangements shall be charged"
On suppliers, a "full cancellation charge will apply for cancellations … made 14 days or less prior to the wedding date"

Musket Cove reaches the same destination by a different route: the deposit is non-refundable and so is the balance, which means 25% is at risk from booking and 100% from 60 days out. VOMO publishes no cancellation terms whatsoever, which is a notable gap given it asks for 50% up front.

For comparison, here is the shape a real Fiji scale takes. An expired Yatule brochure — valid 2019 to 2021, and hosted on a third-party wedding blog rather than the resort's own site — sets out 20% of the entire wedding cost at 14 to 21 days, 50% at 7 to 13 days and 100% inside 7 days, on a non-refundable FJ$375 deposit. Those numbers are not current and we are not presenting them as such. What they tell you is that graduated scales exist in this market, they are written down somewhere, and asking for one is a normal request rather than a cheeky one.

Do not confuse a resort's accommodation terms with its wedding terms. Malolo and Likuliku publish a clear room ladder — a two-night deposit immediately, final payment 45 days out, a 75% fee at 15 to 45 days and 100% inside 14, with high and shoulder season attracting the full fee inside 45 days. Tropica requires full payment 30 days out with 100% forfeit inside that. Those govern the rooms. They say nothing about the ceremony, the flowers or the celebrant, and both resorts' wedding documents are silent on deposits.

Why is the missing date-transfer clause the real problem?

Because a Fiji wedding is far more likely to be moved than cancelled, and nobody publishes what moving it costs.

Not one of the twenty-one resorts we checked publishes a postponement or date-transfer provision: no once-free transfer, no fee, no sunset clause, no time limit on using a transferred deposit. The closest thing in the entire market is an accommodation clause — Malolo and Likuliku allow guests to "defer their stay for up to 12 months from their original travel dates, or receive a full refund" if cyclone damage stops the resort receiving guests. That is a room booking, not a wedding date.

Think about what that absence means in practice. A cyclone, a family bereavement, a visa problem or a border closure does not usually make couples cancel. It makes them move. And with no published transfer term, a move is negotiated from a standing start, at the worst possible moment, against a deposit the resort has already told you is non-refundable.

This is the clause to fix before you sign, and it is why it heads the list below.

Does anyone publish a cyclone clause?

Three properties publish force majeure language, and only one of them does so in a wedding document.

Mana's wedding contract has a "Responsibility during Force Majeure" section releasing the resort where performance is prevented "by any cause beyond its control including without limitation, acts of God … Natural Disaster such as flood, earthquake, cyclones". Its renewal-of-vows document extends this to global pandemics and states plainly that no refunds apply and "full cancellation charges will apply". Read that carefully: the force majeure clause protects the resort's obligations, not your money.

Malolo and Likuliku publish, in their accommodation terms, that cyclone events are "categorised as 'Force Majeure'" and that "guests are not entitled to a refund for unused nights", with the 12-month deferral above available only if the resort cannot receive guests at all. Tropica publishes a general clause covering cyclones, natural disasters and pandemics.

Everybody else — Outrigger, Shangri-La, Warwick, InterContinental, the Sheraton, the Westin, Hilton, Tokoriki, Lomani, Matamanoa, Musket Cove, VOMO, Nanuku, Koro Sun, Yatule, Wellesley, Daku, Leleuvia and Plantation — publishes nothing. Which is the strongest argument there is for wedding insurance, because the contract is not going to carry that risk for you. Our honest cyclone risk guide sets out the actual probabilities.

What minimums are attached to your deposit?

This is where couples get caught: the deposit is not the only commitment in the paragraph.

Guest minimums. Outrigger Fiji publishes "Minimum of 30 guests and maximum of 100 guests" on its Dream Wedding, with additional guests at A$120 each.
Minimum spend. Matamanoa publishes a basic package at FJD 3,375 described as a "(minimum charge)", adding that "should some of the services not be required, then they cannot to be substituted for other services or a price reduction". So the floor is the floor even if you want less than it buys.
Minimum nights, and who must stay where. VOMO requires four nights for the couple, three for group weddings, and that all guests be accommodated on the island. Musket Cove requires "at least 75% of total guests stay at Musket Cove Island Resort". Leleuvia offers whole-island exclusivity midweek in low season for 50 overnight guests on a two-night minimum.
What happens if numbers fall. One resort publishes this. Mana: "Any amendments, for instance a decrease in number of rooms etc, same cancellation conditions will be applied." In other words, shrinking the block is a cancellation, priced as one.
Small change fees. Mana publishes a "full re-make charge" for post-confirmation changes — nameplates FJ$50, welcome boards FJ$50, ring pillows FJ$50. Also, usefully: weddings on the day of arrival are "not accepted".

On tax, note that published inclusions differ. Mana's package prices are stated as including 12.5% VAT, while Malolo and Likuliku state "Prices include 17.5% Govt Taxes". Those are different figures describing different bundles of Fijian taxes and levies, so "tax inclusive" is not a standard term. Ask which taxes, at what rate.

Which five clauses should you negotiate?

In this order, because this is the order in which they will cost you money.

Clause	What to ask for	Why it matters
1. Date transfer	One transfer, at no fee, to any date within 18 months, with the deposit carried across	Nobody publishes this. It is the most likely thing to happen to you and the least protected
2. A graduated cancellation scale	Steps at 90, 60, 30 and 14 days rather than a single 45-day cliff	Mana's scale goes from "lose the deposit" to "lose everything" overnight at day 45
3. Deposit credited, and partly refundable	Confirmation in writing that the deposit is credited against the total, and a portion refundable beyond 90 days	No resort states in terms whether the deposit is credited. Mana only implies it
4. Guest-count flexibility	A stated band, for example 40 to 60, with repricing rather than a cancellation charge inside it	A decrease in rooms is treated as a cancellation at Mana, and destination guest lists always move
5. A weather trigger with a named alternative	The indoor or covered alternative named in the contract, and who decides, and by when	Force majeure clauses protect the resort. A named wet-weather plan protects the day

Two lower-stakes asks worth adding while you have their attention: a fixed price for changes after confirmation rather than an open-ended "re-make charge", and permission to pay the balance by bank transfer, since card surcharges of 2.5% to 3.5% appear across Fiji resort terms and on a FJ$10,000 wedding that is real money.

What should you never sign?

Four things, each of which we have seen published in this market:

A non-refundable balance. Musket Cove's terms make the balance itself non-refundable from 60 days. A deposit at risk is normal; the whole sum at risk two months out is not, and it is negotiable.
A deposit deadline shorter than your decision. Mana gives 14 days from confirmation or the booking auto-cancels. Do not accept a clock that starts before you have read the contract.
A minimum-spend clause with no substitution. If you are paying for services you do not want, ask to swap rather than forfeit.
Anything described verbally. "We're usually flexible about moving dates" is not a term. If it is not written down, it does not exist when you need it.

The verdict

Fiji's wedding terms are not unusually harsh. They are unusually unpublished, and that asymmetry is the problem: the resort knows its terms and you do not, until you are emotionally committed to a date.

So invert the sequence. Ask for the full written terms before you ask about availability, and treat any property that will not send them until you have paid a holding deposit as telling you something. Three resorts in this market publish theirs. Every one of the other eighteen can email them to you in an afternoon.

And whatever else you negotiate, get the date transfer in writing. It is the clause nobody publishes, the clause you are most likely to need, and the one most likely to be granted if you ask before you have handed over 30%.