I think this is Alma's home town, where she was probably born, and the minister has probably been a family friend for most of her life, as is likely to happen in small towns back then.
His comments were that of a close family friend, any thought of a crush on her are pretty preposterous.
I think the wedding scene was no more than it was intended to be...a small family wedding on a tight budget. I dont think the bloke with the dark hair was placed in the shot on purpose nor were there any hidden meanings or interpretations, hidden in the scene.
It was there to show the next path that Ennis followed after his adventure with Jack on Brokeback Mountain. It showed that life went on as had been planned before Brokeback and that Ennis was committing to a life that was considered the normal life he should be leading.....regardless of what was going on in his head at the time.
I think your right dead-on with this. Theres no heavy symbolism, because the players are loaded enough with significance all by themselves: the townspeople that Alma has known her entire life, her folks, her sister (remember the grocery store scene where you first meet Monroe, her sayng, "Monroe, Im so sorry, Ill clean this up soon as I call mys sisiter to come get the girls") the jolly minister likely tthe very one that baptised her. These people represent Society and Public Opinion. They are the holders of the standards that Ennis must meet in positive and negative ways.
A small town like that, the other folks are your lifeline in a rural isolated community, the people you lean on. To transgress their codes is to become a man without a country, unthinkable for someone like Ennis, who if you remember is an orphan. The man standing with him is his brother KE; remember in the credits theres one for KE DelMar) and in the screenplay theres a mention of Alma's "little parents" on the bride side, and Ennis's "rawboned brother and sister" on his side. Thats perceptive to notice the shared suit, the best man is in his clean working clothes, so the groom can wear theone suit between them they can afford. I figure the other folks rounding out the groom side is the ranch foreman, maybe some friends of his from work, and his brothers wife and inlaws.
For Ennis has no other family. To lose the few other connections he has by proxy is a fearful thing to this boy, why even the possibility of being shunned for one of the worst transgressions of the code is unthinkable for him. I dont think these are conscious thoughts to him I doubt that Ennis is any more articulate in his own thoughts than he is in his words. he has vague feelings.
Alma is purely happy, a woman would be on her big day, biggest day of her life, for a girl like that back then, not too much glamor and bright lights for poor country girl in Wyoming back then. Far as she knows, everyhting in life just fell into place, and its happily ever after. They might not have money but she loves Ennis and at this point, imagines whatever life thows their way, she'll make it happy for their little family. Likely Ennis's lonely childhood, losing his folks so young, touched he heart, and she was going to fix it, build him up, give him the happy home he lost.
His thoughts...way more complicated. I wouldnt say he looks sad so much as solemn. Hes taking the next step, doing what a man does, marrying and becoming head of a household, and be seen now as a man among men, something he would of always had secret doubts on, dating back to that first view of old Earl in that drainage, all stirred up by Jack Twist on the mountain. That wedding ring is the officila stamp of approval, but its also a symbol of his weighty new responsibilities. He is now a breadwinner, and bottom line, hes an uneducated laborer with not a lot of prospects, though hes young enough that he dont yet feel the slimness of his chance of escape from the grind of poverty. He still has that dream of a spread of his own, no sickly daughter yetand bills to put it a little further out of reach every payday.
I imagine Jack Twist crosses his mind, but not like those fanfics where Ennis is all but quoting the lines from "I Meant Every Word He Said". To Ennis, Jack and the mountain is already some neverland place, not unlike Lureens cynical description of a pretend place where bluebids sing, somewhere not real, not of the everyday world of your wife, your boss, the guy at the feed store, the people in church and all there implied judgements. It gets a little further away all the time, locked in that room in his mind he only goes to when hes drifting away to sleep or lost in his chores and all alone.
Im pretty sure on this, because I lived it myself. That was me, some twenty or so years ago in my startched uniform, the chaplain and crossed swords instead of a drafty little prairie church in November, but I have been there and I know what went thru his head, and thats why it kills me too, to see her all radiant in her princess dress smiling tenderly at him. He was hoping it would "fix" him for good and all. Yet 4 years later, a few lines from Jack on the back of a postcards brings the whole thing down on there heads, shows what a house of cards it was, a house of cards built on sand.
The wedding is also the end for Jack and Ennis, the end of the idyll. He was still up there in Lightning Flat in those months, likely thought all the time on getting in his truch and making the drive, but being around that father of his, grinding all his big plans and schemes to powdr, he was never going to have anymore nerve than he did in that parking lot outside Aguirres trailer. But in those weeks between coming down off Broke back and "I do", there was still breathing room, in theory anyways. After "I do" the walls that would keep them forever apart were set in stone
