what have your thoughts been on 9sp, 10sp? More?
also, thoughts on cranksets?
how much stuff do you think she would carry, in pounds more or less? My wife carried two rear panniers for a month long trip, incl her sleeping bag and campmat, and while we never weighed her panniers, I suspect they must have been 25lbs. The gearing range with the triple works great for this range of weight. The mid ring pretty much works for all flat and slight uphills, easily up to speeds of 30kph, and the 26t chainring for all climbing and slower than I dunno, 15kph or so.

One thing you havent mentioned is why you bought a frameset, and obviously you thought of setting it up diff than stock.
I never did weigh her wheels, but they are quite a bit heavier than my 32h lighter rims, no longer made Mavic XC 717.
From the experience i have with my wheels, I certainly think its worth getting lighter wheels, as they can easily be tough still.
I do question going to a 1x or 2x drivetrain, as I really dont see the weight savings to be anything worth the tradeoff of the nice wider range of a triple. And again, triple trigger shifters like the Deore ones I got to replace the stock microshift thumbies , work so well and precise, with a really nice light action also that my wife really really appreciates (having had cheap bikes with much stiffer harder trigger shifters that take a lot more thumb pressure to shift.)
Deore 10 sp triggers are somewhere in the 75 dollar range, and will last and last and last.

have you thought about brakes? Disc, rim?
Her bike and mine both have BB7s, cable mech discs, and I can attest to them working perfectly well on my heavily loaded Troll in seriously mountainous riding. Cant speak for other mechanical disc systems, but Im sure spyre stuff works fine too.
Just takes learning new mech skills working on disc setups , adjusting and whatnot.