If you want your marriage to be legal (even when wed high in the mountains or on a desert island), you’ll have to prepare the papers. And that means you need to do some research, especially if you’re having an elopement wedding abroad. Find out what legal marriage papers you need, whether there should be witnesses and how many, who has the legal right to marry you (should it be the officiant or can someone get the permission to perform a wedding ceremony?), etc. All this has to be done in advance so that you didn’t waste time during the wedding trip itself.