Brazilian wife coming to UK to study

I´m a UK national in Brazil at the moment to get married to a Brazilian girl who I met in the UK. She has been accepted to a University in London to do a Masters degree, starting in October. I´m supposing that in theory that gives us two options for her visa; study or spouse.

Her course was only offered to her (rather late) after we had arranged to come to Brazil. It´s still a provisional offer and there is a small chance that her funding won´t come through, so then we would have to apply for a spouse visa. The problem is that whilst we were dating she had been overstaying on a tourist visa. I´m not wanting to spin a web of deception when it comes to the interview; how black a mark is it if it comes out that she has overstayed?

Student applicants may be refused for a limited period, depending on previous length of overstay, unless they left the UK between 17 March 2008 and 1 October 2008. However, spouses are normally exempt from automatic refusal, subject to 320(11). Don't attempt deception.

Thanks for the advice, very helpful. Sorry to ask about stuff which has been published but the various gov visa websites I found to be difficult to navigate. We shall applying for a spouse visa so any further queries I´ll post in the other forum.