I know details of one couple around that time who married at a Registrar: it was a case of a man marrying his deceased wife’s sister, which was still illegal at that time. Presumably it was much easier to keep a marriage low-key if it wasn’t at a church, especially if it involved travelling to a nearby town.
Although I imagine that most people had a live-and-let-live attitude to these circumstances, especially if it meant that children who had lost their mother gained an aunt as their “new mother”.
