A couple of things are working against you.

First, you're talking about high demand season for travel originating in Australia/NZ; getting premium seats to/from SYD at that time of year is very difficult, regardless of your origin point.

Second, some carriers, in particular Qantas, open redemption booking windows earlier than US carriers, so QFF members have a built-in advantage over AAdvantage members in that they can book the few award seats sooner. That doesn't mean that additional seats won't open as time passes; they can and do, but it's a complete crap shoot and not something you can build definitive plans around.

Not trying to hijack your honeymoon plans (congratulations, by the way) but what if you considered alternative locations than the South Pacific or Indian Ocean? (The Maldives are, by the way, under a great deal of scrutiny with respect to jihadist activities there.) What about South America or SE Asia?

Or - to ask an obvious question - what about a combination of award tickets to some "staging" point, then revenue (paid) tickets after that, or vice-versa? For example, fly to Europe on paid tickets and redeem miles for business class awards to South Africa or Mauritius? Or look for business class awards using AA miles to Europe and use United miles to get from there to Africa or maybe the Seychelles. Sometimes using different mileage programs for different destinations is more successful than going with one.

Keep working at it and good luck!