Well, this is cute.

Edward Fraser, 30, spent three months planning his proposal to his girlfriend, Rachael Herman.

Rather than going for the standard popping the question in a restaurant route, Edward went for something a little more personal: Carefully selected crossword clues.

Edward and Rachael regularly play crosswords together, so using one to propose made perfect sense.


He reached out to his local Eastern Daily Press to craft coded clues all based on facts about Rachael and references to their relationship.

Clues included Kava, which they drank together when they went on Holiday to Fiji, and Hedwig, as Rachael’s a huge fan of Harry Potter.



One clue was: ‘The Black Prince begins untangling odes and seeks her final response to 27 across’. This had the answer: ‘Edward does ask R.’

The clue to 27 across? ‘It’s a question of love’.

The answer? ‘Will you marry me?’

Rachel said yes.

‘I agonised over it for quite a while,’ said Edward. ‘I was looking for something different and wanted to make it special because she is a special person.

‘It was quite hard initially as I was trying to think of really cool clues.

‘But I started off with a grid in excel and I was sticking in letters and black squares to make the crossword.

‘I had the random answers ready and just started to backwards to make the clues.’

Rachael had no clue it was coming, sitting down to do her weekly crossword with no suspicion of what was coming.

She managed to complete the crossword (she’s had plenty of practice), figured out was happening, and was overjoyed.

‘I had no idea it was coming it was such a lovely surprise,’ said Rachael. ‘Edward played along really well.

‘Because we always to the crosswords together and he was playing along with me, it just like normal so it was really convincing.’

Edward added: ‘The “will you marry me” clue was made easier for Rachael but I did think about making that really cryptic.

‘I just guided her around a bit before that and made sure she didn’t spend too long on that side of the crossword.

‘Ultimately the clue was “It’s a question of love” because that is what it is.

‘I was toying with the idea of when she got the answer to it, I would pretend “oh that’s interesting, I wonder what that’s about” but I thought that would be too harsh.’

‘To be honest I got a couple of clues and doing the dividing lines I had solved it in my head,’ explained Rachael. ‘I thought in my head does that mean “will you marry me?”

‘And then the heart was pounding because I thought “was this for me?”

‘But I didn’t say anything because I just wanted to be sure.



‘A bit of me kind of wanted to play Edward at his own game as well and let him sweat it out.

‘Once I got to the last clue I realised the answer was “Edward does ask R.”

‘I looked at it and at that point I knew it was definitely for me.

‘I played dumb a little bit, like “oo I wonder what that is”.

‘But after that I just couldn’t concentrate anymore, so I decided to write the answer down.’

Edward had the ring ready for that moment, and the moment Rachel completed the crossword he officially popped the question.

‘This was definitely the perfect way to do it as I am quite a private person and it was meaningful, informal and intimate,’ said Rachael.

‘It was very well done and very convincing – I love a cryptic crossword.’

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