True on the exposure, the camera has a setting where it automatically takes 3 or 5 shots at different stop increments.

This is called "bracketing" as mentioned above.

I think you should try to reshoot that shot but shoot it about 2-5 min later, to help mitigate blown hilights a bit more.

In a universe with a lot of time, you sit there for an hour. COOL TRICK - hold your hand all the way out between you and the sun. Put your pinky on the horizon. Every finger between your pinky and the sun is fifteen minutes and in general, you've got three or four fingers worth of rippin' good light (depending on the atmospheric conditions, shit might end as soon as the sun sinks or you might get an extra "finger" when the sun is over the horizon but cooking the shit out of overhead clouds. It's not so much about dealing with blowouts as it is capturing the varying light conditions as the sun gets more and more oblique on the scene.

KB probably knows the rules better than I on people in photos, would you need a signed release from the gal and couple in the center if you were to actually use the photo commercially?

"Need" is the tricky part. In a full-fury film shoot for broad commercial release, you get a signed release allowing you to shoot in the location and hang up signs that say effectively "your presence in this location serves as consent for filming eat a dick." If you feature any of these people in a recording you get a release from them. If they're just bystanders nobody gives a fuck. If they're unidentifiable nobody gives a fuck. If you have no audio recording of them saying words nobody gives a fuck.

In a Canadian photo shoot in a public place for commercial use outside the general public no one is ever going to care unless there's an ad agency with its panties in a twist that decides they want to avoid any appearance of missed licensing because they're pussies or because they want to beat you up on price (PROTIP: most "licensing" issues are "we want to beat you up on the price"). They'll skunk the photo because of the old couple staring at the photographer, not the girls walking across the frame. They're identifiable, they're jarring in the frame and they can poison the editorial.

Pragmatically speaking it comes down to whether the customer cares. If the customer is stock, the people are unidentifiable. If the customer is bespoke, best ask first.