New York Times, Thursday, September 26, 2019

This puzzle involved a real-life marriage proposal from Brendan McGrady to Amanda Yesnowitz. Amanda is an acclaimed lyricist, performer, English professor at NYU, and published NYT constructor.

She and Brendan competed at the 22nd Westchester Crossword Puzzle Tournament. The contest included Doug's crossword as the playoff puzzle conducted on the large boards. Since it was Amanda's idea to take part in the contest, she had no idea that Brendan was going to propose.

When the round was over, I explained the theme to everyone ... and announced that Doug had made the puzzle at the request of someone named Brendan.

At that point, Brendan walked to the front, expressed his feelings for Amanda in a beautiful way, and got down on one knee and proposed. She said yes!

Brendan approached me about this project months ago, and I loved the idea! But the trick was to make a puzzle that would work for Brendan and also work as a normal New York Times crossword that would be solved by millions of people who weren't proposing to a woman named Amanda.

We went back and forth, brainstorming ideas. Song titles? Top places to propose? Adding IDO to phrases to make wacky entries? Then Brendan's best friend Mark (also a crossword enthusiast) suggested the rebus angle. We hit on "rings in little boxes," and it all clicked.

One of the funniest moments occurred when Brendan and I saw each other at the Lollapuzzoola crossword tournament last month. We'd been exchanging emails for months and had bonded over crosswords and our shared love of Marvel movies. But of course, Amanda, who named the tournament, was there too, so Brendan and I had to pretend that we barely knew each other. I think we pulled it off OK. Thank goodness Brendan's an accomplished actor.

And to add a touch of poignancy, Amanda's love of puzzles was passed down to her from her father Gilbert, which she wrote about when our puzzle was published in 2012. He passed away in July but not before Brendan thought to share his proposal secret, to which Gil, knowing he had days to live, tearfully responded: "Thank you for giving me something to look forward to."

Many thanks to Will and his team for helping to put this all together. And congratulations to the happy couple!

So many beautiful touches: TWOSOME, ALLU(RING), AMANDA crossing ENGAGEMENT RING, and even ADORER brought me a smile. All of this, worked into what seemed like a solid, if run-of-the-mill, rebus puzzle to millions of unaware solvers. Well done, Doug, and congrats to the happy couple!

It's a good thing her name isn't Svotivaniaska.