Lightroom :: Getting Ringing Artifacts / Fringing And Halos?

I am trying to bring back the sky in these photos without altering the bride in the foreground, or anything other objects, aside from the sky. Admittedly I didn't expose for the sky and the stop difference between the foreground and background is quite drastic. There are three pictures. First to show what the overall picture is and what we're dealing with (I've already "locally adjusted" the majority of the sky with method 2 below). Second picture is to show you a sample of the artifacts and fringing. The third picture shows a sample of the halo situation.
 
I have tried two things:
 
1) Gradient Filter - As most of you are already saying in your head, it is not appropiate in this scenario as it messes too much with the foreground (the bride intersects over some of the sky, so it would be neccessary to to drag it down over her), to the point where the drop in exposure is too intense to bring her back. So that doesn't work.
 
2) Local Adjustment Brush - Tried everything with this thing, from auto mask on and off for both the painting and erasing afterwords, different feathering, no feathering, different brush sizes, etc. Nothing I have tried leaves me with a satisfactory final product, that is to say, no ringing artifacts, fringing or halos around the boarder of the bride where she meets with the sky. I am completely lost with what I should do! There is very little information available in other forum posts, and most of the information available is basic at best with suggestions like: "Turn on/off the auto-mask". This is becoming a growing irritation as I have this photograph and another one where I screwed up on my exposure and just burried the sky.