In instances I have come across, although the second marriages took place at some distance, the couples returned home afterwards. Their families and communities must have been well aware that the two wives were sisters. I don't think everyone disapproved, or even felt strongly about it.
My great-great grandparents avoided marrying while it was against church law, but did so before it became civil law. Harriet's first husband died in 1829, and she married his brother Richard in 1835. They had a child in 1831 who was baptised in their home village, but no father is recorded in the parish register.
Marriage between a widow and her deceased husband's brother was prohibited under ecclesiastical law, although until 1835 there was no civil ban, and such marriages were not void (although voidable). The 1835 Marriage Act however, hardened the law into an absolute prohibition (while, however, authorising any such marriages which had already taken place), so that such marriages could no longer take place in the UK.
Richard and Harriet were very probably discouraged from marrying because of ecclesiastical disapproval. But faced with a civil ban, they married before the Marriage Act came into force on 31 Aug 1835, marrying outside their own parish by licence. They continued to live in their own village, and everybody must have known the circumstances. Probably nobody cared except the vicar!