I have learnt a lot about people pictures from these two pics of your wife. I am forever taking the equivalent of holiday snaps of people where I try and combine both the scene and the person like this one and I now realise from this that too often the background competes with the person even when the background is out of focus. Maybe being out of focus makes the competition between the two parts worse not better. It might just work if the person and background is in the same plain of focus as in next to each other but I am not sure.
The other thing I have learnt from these two pics is that the natural look when the person isn't posed in front of the camera or at least appears not to be posed is so much better.
In a technical sense as in getting the right tones for a person shot, both pics tick the necessary boxes. I'd be very happy with these as my prints.