I'm not clear on what you hope to achieve. Were you wanting to change the shape completely from the sheared look, or lose some of the height? I don't think it's possible to stimulate much in the way of interior growth and keep the tall canopy of foliage too. Healthy well established azaleas will normally respond well to renovative pruning - that is, cut them back hard all at once - you could then let them grow out into a more natural shape if that was your goal. Removing 1/3 of the plant at a time over a three year period is safest, but for the most part, they do fine if cut almost to the ground all at once unless under some kind of stress (insects, drought etc). Has the ground cover always been there? Normally use of thick ground cover over the root zones is discouraged, due to azaleas surface rooting habit. Healthiest plants often have little more than mulch between the drip line and base.

For anyone else with similar questions, I ended up doing slight gathering at the top of the train shape before sewing it in. This created some additional draping from the top of the godet. I also hand sewed a couple of stiches about half an inch from the top of the godet where the godet joined both sides of the skirt (connected the two side seams together and forced the godet away from the body) to poof it out just a tiny bit. It's looking great.

Thanks for the suggestion-- but Nordstrom says pretty clearly that if it is sold out on the site, it's sold out in the stores. I am a wee bit competitive with the internet when it comes to things like this so I DID check online and call the store. It's out. No worries-- there are plenty of dresses in the world and while this one charmed me, it probably wasn't the best option. It's too formal for one of them and too summery for the other. Again, I posted this primarily to alert others to the sale!

I'm so sorry about that mixup! Thank you @texanjana for the link! Very helpful. Great to know that pear earrings + bracelet isn't too much! I don't have a whole lot of jewelry, and only a few nicer pieces. Thanks kswl and bbstx! I'm looking around on google maps right now to see what might be in the area that we could explore. The hotel is right by the Hartfield-Jackson Airport (husband's work is in the airline industry). Probably not the most exciting area to stay. It looks like the Botanical Gardens are (according to google maps) 18 minutes away by car (12 miles), but that seems a little doubtful based on what Amy described! The Georgia Aquarium looks interesting and similarly google thinks it's 15 minutes away. I wonder if I could double whatever time? Triple?