Travelling and trying to change name - dual citizen

Wife's a dual UK - US citizen.

We're trying to change my wife's name. We'd held off until her passport was due for renewal and after citizenship.

US passport expired and we're due to travel to US and back to UK 16 Nov - 25 Nov. We booked travel in her maiden name which is what her UK passport is in and her old US passport.

In July we applied to change my wife's name on her US passport. But unfortunately her application, passport and our original marriage certificate all got lost in the post. This is the one time I chanced not sending via tracked post. Shame on me.

US Embassy has advised that she can apply in person for a replacement and she'll be able to change her name if she brings another copy of the marriage certificate (we had the courthouse in Maryland do a number of official copies when we got married). We have an appointment booked next Monday. I can't find out online how long it'll take for the replacement to come through.

We were waiting for the new US passport before applying for a name change on the UK passport (and then we'd be getting the flight details changed to her new name). I think we could pay extra to get an expedited UK passport but I'm worried we're cutting it fine.

So I think we have three options:

1) Just replace the US passport so as to be in my wife's maiden name (no name change). Do the trip and then apply for a replacement in her new name after. I think that within a year of issue you can get a free name change.

2) Replace the US passport to be in her new name and change the names on the flight booking. Apply to change the UK passport and pay for it to be expedited. My worry is that timelines may end up being a bit compressed and nail bitey anyway.

3) Replace the US passport to be in her new name but hang on to the UK passport in her maiden name until after the trip. Either do/don't change the names on the flights. My worry in doing this is if we don't change the names on the flight then my wife's US passport will not match the names on the US bound flight manifesto and US border control could get funny. Or we do change the names on the flight but then the UK passport will not match the names on the UK bound flight manifesto and UK border control could get funny.

Do we play it safe and go for 1). Do we risk it and go whole hog for 2) or do we half ass it and try to explain to the immigration officer?