Puzzling over a proposal

By: Joe Strupp When would-be groom Aric Egmont approached Editor Doug Most of The Boston Globe Magazine with the ambitious idea of hiding his marriage proposal inside the magazine's crossword puzzle, the veteran editor thought it would be fun and different ? and likely a publicity boon for the paper.

But after the Sept. 23 puzzle appeared, with the proposal hidden inside clue 111 Across, the attention it sparked surpassed even his expectations. "It took off more than we could have anticipated," Most says, with follow-up stories by the likes of "Good Morning America," The Associated Press, and news outlets from as far away as Japan. Then there was the "Weekend Update" report on "Saturday Night Live," which added the alleged backstory that the groom had previously announced a divorce in the Jumble, using a profane message.

When the Globe posted a story about the proposal online the next day, which included the news that Egmont's girlfriend, Jennie Bass, had accepted, it became the most e-mailed story of the day, and drew some 43,000 page views over the following two weeks as word spread. "It was actually frustrating from a publicity standpoint at the beginning, because we couldn't publicize it in advance," Most says.

The word-clue proposal actually dates back to June, when Egmont, a Fidelity Investment employee, e-mailed Most with the idea of forming a puzzle around his marriage request. He told the editor that he and his girlfriend enjoyed solving the weekly feature together. "On our fourth date, I knew I had found the kind of dork I could love," Egmont wrote in his e-mail. "We had already had some more adventurous outings. But on our fourth date we just went to the local coffee shop and did the crossword."

Most says the first challenge was constructing a puzzle that included connections to the couple, but also one that other readers would enjoy. He contacted Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon, full-time crossword writers who were scheduled to compose that week's puzzle.

Both were game. "If the couple involved was enthusiastic and the editors were enthusiastic, we wouldn't let it stop us," Rathvon says of the task. "We had to think pretty long on how to do it on a private level for them, and on the public level."

Cox and Rathvon, who are married and create crosswords for several publications, organized the puzzle around a "marriage proposal" theme. Clues like "Quasimodo's proposal," "Bridesmaid's escort," and "Best man's salute" were employed. The writing duo hid references to the couple, such as Bass' last name, the name of her best friend, even her sister's name. Rathvon says the puzzle took several weeks to write, which is twice as long as most usual ones.

But it was the 111 Across clue, "Generic proposal," that set up Egmont's question (and the puzzle's answer) "Will you marry me?" When he and Bass were working on the crossword and reached that clue, he got down on one knee, pulled out a ring, and popped the question. "It took her a minute to say yes," he later told the paper.

Most says the idea has not prompted a string of copycats asking to offer the same proposal: "We have been looking for other ways to make the puzzle appealing. I thought it was clever and fun, and I saw a value in it for us if we could do it well."