wedding and class

I kept thinking about the significance of having a wedding occur at the beginning of the novel, and why it occurred then in the specific manner that it did.  First, I feel that it helped serve the purpose of setting up the setting, if you will, by explaining what the surroundings of the Brangwen sisters looks like.  The problem with this explanation is that the wedding has no important part in it; really the sisters could have just gone on a walk to have the setting introduced.  One slightly significant aspect of the wedding is that it put a halt to an argument about marriage and children, which is fairly ironic.  I believe that the most significant aspect of the wedding though deals with outlining the different classes in the novel.  We get descriptions of the wealthy Crich family entering the church to attend the important wedding from Ursula and Gudrun who are sitting up on a hill - clearly not invited to the wedding.  The lower of the two represented classes is up on the hill observing the upper class.
Class is not an issue that is brought forth as blatantly in the novel, but it is certainly present (like when the sisters are excited that they have been invited to Hermione's house, and later on when the Crich family invites the staff of the Grammar School to their party and other lower classes are seen up on the hill watching the guests p. 157-158).