Very funny puzzle. Especially liked MOTHER IN LAWN. Wedded at a medieval tournament? JOUST MARRIED The groom at the medieval tournament? WEDDING KNIGHT Maids of honor? WEDDING BELLES Marking sections of The Inferno for your best man speech? SAVE THE DANTE Teetotaler's choice at the open bar? MATCHA MADE IN HEAVEN Ask Leo X to preside? POPE THE QUESTION
@john ezra I wish my mind worked like yours does.
@John ezra you're a lot better cluing than a lot of the old 'male' guard not trying to say anybody isn't as clever as you but a puzzle is suppose to be FUN not painful its really kinda basic hope you get to create a puzzle for the times fresh blood needed
@john ezra Nicely done, sir.
@john ezra The couple can't decide what kind of cake to have. They need one with multiple WEDDING FLAVORS.
@john ezra MATCHA MADE IN HEAVEN… Oww, coffee exiting through the nose... Priceless, John. Also, yes to what you said about @Francis.
@John Ezra Congrats, you win the Mike from Munster punster prize today.
My invalid aunt still retained a sharp mind and every day I’d phone so we could do the NYT puzzle together. I’m completing this one alone wiping the happy tears from my glasses as I think of her. Thank you for this gift.
@Laura Great memory. I'm glad they are happy tears. Those are the best kind.
@Laura Sorry to hear about your aunt.
@Laura I’m so sorry for your loss, and so happy you will have her, just as you did today, sitting next to you or on your shoulder, whispering hints and applauding you for parsing out a tough clue. You’ve got her right there with you, every time you dive into a grid. Nothing but nobody not no-how can ever take that from you.
I have a streak that dates back to November of 2020. In over 1,650 puzzles during this time, this was one of the most delightful I have had the privilege of solving. It helps that I got married less than a year ago, so all of the phrases that had "plus ones" in them were front of mind! Thank you, Ruth and Hannah, for putting a huge smile on my face with it!
First the trailers dated. Then they got hitched. (They're in it for the long haul.)
@Mike BTW, Mike, no pun here. I just wanted to applaud you for your pulling back your typical schtick on Friday, when the constructor had lost a friend. Very classy. But you missed the idiom! It's "the long hall".
@Mike If they plant a garden they're going to have to get some mobile gnomes.
@Mike Very Good! But I think Frank Sinatra got there first!: Love and marriage Love and marriage Go together like a horse and carriage
@Mike Keep on truckin'. You really seem to cater to this. I hope you don't crater.
@Francis Compassion and kindness are always important, and I thank you. 💛
There’s ha-ha happiness and there’s warm-the-heart happiness, and for me, today’s puzzle pulsed with both. First of all, it’s wedding-centered, based on an event where the heart often swells with elation, where the eyes often fill with the best tears, where the air is filled with delight, merriment, and high spirits. Where love is palpable. Then, it’s made by a mom and daughter. As I imagine them working side-by-side, laughing and high-fiving at coming up with finds that land, cocooning in earnest while brainstorming and chiseling their creation, well, that’s a mom-daughter relationship that touches my heart, that reminds me that so much good pervades this world. Also, this is a puzzle whose purpose is more than just to create riddles to crack – it’s also to entertain. It wants to get us to smile and even burst out with a “Hah!” or giggle. Who doesn’t like that? It succeeded with me, kept me in a jolly good mood throughout, punctuated by genuine laughs, while keeping my brain happy untangling clues and theme answers. Crossword success in the highest. Started with an empty box, and exiting feeling, through and through, that life is good. Wow and thank you, Ruth and Hannah!
An aspirin after celebrating too much? Checking that the patent leather shoes are fastened? Drama over who bought the most expensive gift? HEAD TABLET TRYING THE KNOT PRICE THROWING But Ruth and Hannah’s choices were really funny!
@Cat Lady Margaret Those are really good!
@Cat Lady Margaret Those are good.
Does this puzzle take you to a happier place than the thought of sitting through an actual wedding? IT DO. (Sorry to all the wedding fans out there.)
@JohnWM About the same for me: "Good day for the happy couple. Nice that so many people are enjoying this. Some of the words that have been chosen are ... odd. Now it's taking too long. Well, I'm glad that's over."
I'm still chuckling at MOTHER IN LAWN.
@Dave S It’s pretty easy to picture that, isn’t it? Our wedding was outdoors. I don’t remember how what my mother-in-law wore on her feet, but it probably wasn’t high heels.
I completed this clever, well polished puzzle with enthusiasm (despite many lookups) the morning after a surprise engagement party for my grandson and his beautiful inside-and--out bride to be. I was delighted to celebrate the union between a U.S.-born nice Jewish boy with Ukrainian ancestors who arrived here in the late 1800s and English ancestors who arrived here in 1620, and a nice Indian -American girl born in the U.S. of physician parents who immigrated from Goa in the 20th century, and became pillars of their community. My grandson works for an organization that helps immigrants. His fiancée is an RN. (They did not meet through the immigrant organization ) As the oldest person in the room by at least 25 years, I was thrilled by the smart, charming, generous young people there, all of them highly educated professionals involved in socially useful work. Why am I sharing all this with you? Because I rejoice that this union will enrich community. I hope your wedding invitations make you think of what's happening to our country as a result of them. Plus1 expresses this thought very well, I think.
Wish I might hire a cashbard to better articulate happiness, awe, and a touch of envy for this mother- daughter debut. Thank you, Hannah and Ruth, for sharing a snapshot of your union, at the altar and grid, it seems. For 15 years, my dearest Mother posted NYT puzzle bundles to little lonely me overseas- clipped at the table she shared with the love of her life. Those crosswords, and her notes, kept me grounded. I wish you both continued peace and joy, and look forward to your next collaboration. "Love is a gift of one's innermost soul to another, so both can be whole." ☸️
When I went to the cash bard, he gave me a twist of rhyme with my cocktail.
A nit about 99A [Rugby scuffle]. In Rugby (Union, the form most seen in the USA) a. SCRUM is a highly structured and controlled action. It is in the rucks and mauls, related but quite different actions, that we see what appears to be scuffling.
@Patrick J. Could you please translate that to English? 😁
@Patrick J. Since ruck and maul don’t have enough letters, this didn’t bother me.
@Patrick J. It's the opinion of the NYT crossword that Rugby League and Rugby Union are the same sport. Expecting them to understand how a scrum works is asking a lot.
A fun puzzle and perfect for this time of year. A lovely clue for MADLY (“Head over heels”), considering the theme. Thanks, Ruth and Hannah. I enjoyed that. “Is the stable boy bringing the reins?” HERE COMES THE BRIDLE
Can someone explain [Real lulu] = ONER?
@Alexis I gave up and looked it up after I finished. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oner" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/oner</a> "British: something unique or extraordinary" That's new for me.
@Alexis That N was my last letter to fall. I had to look up the words afterwards, and both ONER and [lulu] share the definition of "remarkable person". Personally, I've never heard either word uses that way.
"used" not "uses". I wish we could edit our comments. Oh well.
@Alexis ONER, meaning "one-of-a-kind", used to be common crossword fill in the pre-Shortz days of the NYT puzzle. I was always grateful to Will for weeding out that bit of "crossword-ese". A bit sorry (but also a bit nostalgic) to see it resurrected here.
Re: Weeding it out A work in progress? ONER has appeared 601 times in the Crossword, but only 93 times in the Shortz era.
@Barry Ancona Yeah, I'm basing my "weeding" purely on my subjective feeling. However, since Will has been around for over 30 years, he's got it down to less than 3 times a year. (93 out of 11,246) How often did it appear in the Maleska/Weng eras?
Oh, it's definitely been weeded; it's just not out. Pre-Shortz, it appeared about ten times a year.
Another Brit here who has never encountered ONER. A "lulu" is indeed a remarkable person [or thing or event] but never in an entirely good way, in my experience.
@Oikofuge I'm an American, and I've never encountered ONER outside of a crossword puzzle either. I'm tempted to say almost no one's ever seen that word (except when solving), but that might be a hasty generalization.
More puzzles like this please! Till deaRth us do part!
Take me forever (about 20 minutes to figure out it wasn't SOMETHINGGOLD/DRAG.
@James Curran I eventually gave up trying to find my error, only to learn it was this all along. So annoyed.
@James Curran Makes sense! Colorful sequins could be gold and something lackluster could be a drag.
@James Curran This was my error too. Looked at it closely when I read your comment and was able to find the correct answer. Thanks for the hint 😊 Mark
@James Curran Thank you for helping me find my last mistaken square.
Clever clues, lively fill, and terrible puns. Just how I like my Sunday puzzles.
I think we can all agree MOTHERINLAWN is a real humdinger! Made me laugh out loud. Kudos. (I wonder if there was a temptation to go with SMOTHERINLAW, which is surely what many of us want to do in the years to wedded bliss)
A mother-daughter team constructing a wedding-themed crossword puzzle - this surely takes the cake! As the news on the front page gets grimmer, it sure is nice have to have heart-warming stories such as this emerge from the “back pages.” Ladies, keep the puzzles coming! tc
How do you not clue WEDDINGDURESS as “Shotgun marriage”?! I thought this was a fine puzzle and actually fairly chewy for me. Some of the clues were a little DRAB like SOMETHINGBOLD and BEASTMAN while PARITYPLANNER and MOTHERINLAWN made me laugh. I thought WINEFRAUD was a stretch but I guess it’s a thing.
@SP Or how about “Princess Buttercup’s plight in ‘The Princess Bride’?”
@SP Today I learned, not from the puzzle, but from Googling, that wine fraud is actually a "thing". Since the clue with the question mark makes the answer completely appropriate, and since the answer is a "thing", then why is it a stretch?
Fantastic construction built around a great theme! So many LOL moments threaded throughout the grid. My husband was sitting next to me as I solved this and he was chuckling as well 😆 Congratulations on your debut, Hannah, and how exciting to share that experience with your mother! I really enjoyed your work and hope to see more
Great puzzle. I had LAPS for 'What's broken for a record' and managed to convince myself that PINE FRAUD is a thing and probably related to poor quality tennis rackets made of pine wood. Took me ages before I realized my idiocy.
This one put up a lot of resistance for me, and took a few passes through the grid to finally get the theme. I figured out that the theme entries were altered (altared? 😉 ) phrases but didn’t get that they were all wedding related and required adding only one letter until pretty late in my solve, when I finally realized SHAVETHEfAcE wasn’t a variation of “save face” and was actually SHAVETHEDATE. Someone commented below that they weren’t sure why an E for Everyone rating is necessary for a video game. As someone with little kids, I find it useful in the same way the G ratings on movies are useful in establishing what media needs less scrutiny or discussion before allowing my kids to watch or play. Happy anniversary to all those whose weddings took place in June! Just celebrated sweet sixteen with my spouse this past week. 🥰
@Rachel Happy anniversary to you both!
WINE FRAUD crossing with GRIFT REGISTRY was *chef’s kiss*
Duane, Nat, Awkwafina, Ocasek, FWIW (great song, by the way). Such a great start to a great puzzle. What? No Swifty clues? My favorite clues: » Lay low… I LOVE it! » Driver’s warning caused me a chuckle and an AHA moment. Hint, when you slice it in the woods, no need for a fore! Under the heading of Only In NJ: » Wallop = paste? “I'll paste ya right in the mouth, ya little twerp.” Mother-in-lawn, genius! En masse, they can aerate my lawn.😎 Head scratchers: » Twee? Brit speak? » Oner? » Exurb, a portmanteau? » Much = far? » NEA and not NRA, wow! Note to future self; MNOP no longer precedes Q. I'll just sashay my ducks into a row. I hesitated at 72D, but thank goodness one can still FAIL. 6 on a phone is still MNO and not... ya know, whew! I was all over those famous Doctors, but, much to my chagrin, Drs. Phil, Detroit and Beeper didn't make the cut. Curses! I'm very familiar with the Hasidic Jews, but I guess I’ll take ‘Hasidim’. Good people, very philanthropic and great to talk with. A puzzle well constructed!
@Jerry hoping for a "Dr. or Doctor" clue for DRE someday
@Jerry We have FAR more than we need. (Substitute "much" for FAR, and it means the same thing.
@Jerry thanks for this. I had FinE and, as you can imagine, was stumped by the surrounding clues, all of which refused to be compatibly incorrect.
@Jerry TWEE is "chiefly British", but it's showing up in the US a bit these days. It's supposedly "sweet" in baby talk. ONER is read "one-er". It's probably short for "one of a kind". It has been used 603 times (though, surprisingly, not in the past five years), so remember it. It will appear again, no doubt! EXURB isn't a portmanteau any more than "suburb" is. The EXURBs are the parts of the "metropolitan area" of a city that isn't metropolitan at all. There are likely to be as many cows as people, but the suburban train reaches the main town there (at the end of the line, as the puzzle says).
"I'm very familiar with the Hasidic Jews, but I guess I’ll take ‘Hasidim’." Jerry, You knew the adjective; today you met the noun.
@Barry Ancona Also, in Hebrew 'im' on the end of the word is the plural.
Never felt on the constructors' wavelengths, but in the end I really liked this puzzle. The theme was clever, and I even smiled in response to my mental image of a MOTHERINLAWN. Given the amount of thematic content in the grid, the fill seemed pretty solid, all in all. I'm willing to overlook AWORD, AROW, EAN and OWOE. Liked the creative uses of the two X's: XRAYLAB/EXURB and LEOX/TAXFORM. Seeing "Queue before Q", for some reason today I immediately entered MNOP. Wrong there, but then MNO appeared in response to "6, on a phone"! Fun puzzle. Solved it unaided, but took me 45 minutes. That doesn't include the additional 20 minutes I spent seeking meaning in HDUREBIAN.
@Xword Junkie You may not be on the constructors' wavelengths, but you definitely are on mine.
@ The X-Phile Wow! And we even posted almost simultaneously.
@Xword Junkie I found BRIDE and HUAN. I checked the constructor's name, hoping it would match.
@ Nancy J. I consulted an Armenian dictionary. Not really.
(Cont'd) OPHELIA: (She wrings her hands.) Neither fits! Neither! This puzzle is a torment! It speaks of worlds unknown to me! What am I to do, Hamlet? My mind reels! Mine own wits art scatt'r'd like autumn leaves! HAMLET: (Patting her shoulder awkwardly.) Calm yourself, Ophelia. It is but a game. A trifle. OPHELIA: A trifle?! It is a testament to my ignorance! A cruel mirror reflecting my own inadequacies! I cannot solve it, Hamlet! I cannot! (Her eyes grow wide, a strange light entering them.) OPHELIA (cont.): I see... I see the patterns now! The hidden messages! The grid is not random! It is a map! A map to… to a place where knowledge is not confined by tiny boxes! (She starts to back away, her voice growing distant.) OPHELIA (cont.): I must… I must go! To a place where puzzles hold no sway! Where ignorance is bliss! HAMLET: (Reaching for her.) Ophelia, wait! Where do you go? OPHELIA: (Her eyes fix on some unseen point in the distance.) To a nunnery! Yes! Where the only riddles are matters of faith! Where the vocabulary is limited to prayer and piety! Fare thee well, Hamlet! Fare thee well, cruel puzzle! (Ophelia rushes from the chamber, leaving a bewildered Hamlet staring at the New Yorick Times Sunday Puzzle. He slowly lowers it, a look of confusion on his face.) HAMLET: ... A nunnery? For a wordsquare puzzle? Truly, Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. That one may smile and smile and be a villain.... and perhaps, about the content of these Times. [SCENE ENDS]
@replay Brilliant! The heretofore unknown story behind Hamlet and Ophelia. And the role the New Yorick Times Sunday Puzzle played. I can't wait to hear what torments Macbeth so.
as i've noted before, my son and i do do the puzzle together almost every day. we first started when we were home together during covid and he was in high school. our current streak is 499 as of today, so it was especially nice to read about ruth and hannah as a mother/daughter team who started out solving together. my son has tried his hand at puzzle construction, and i imagine we will collaborate one day. well, i hope so, anyway! favorite answers today: GRIFTREGISTRY, CASHBARD, and MOTHERINLAWN; i laughed out loud at the last two! thanks, ruth and hannah, for a great sunday solve. i hope you are keeping cool on this steamy ny/nj day. and i hope you collaborate on more puzzles! p.s. i was pleasantly surprised that the answer to 106A was HASIDIM, as i didn't realize that term was used outside the hebrew/yiddish speaking community!
Hope, HASID has been a word in the English language for more than 200 years. <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hasidim" target="_blank">https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hasidim</a>
@Hope Levav HASIDIM is certainly more familiar to me than most of the Hebrew/Yiddish vocabulary invoked by the NYT. I particularly dread foodstuffs!
@Hope Levav This goy had HASIDIc first, as the clue was a bit vague as to singular/plural.
The clue called for a noun, not an adjective.
@Hope Levav Congratulations on your and your sons's record. That's really a great tradition.
Clever as hell. Really loved it! Nice work.
@Ιασων Yes. It is a sad, sad day for Dr. Who fans, everywhere.
@Ιασων WHO is a Doctor, never a Dr.
@Ιασων ...and DEMENTO didn't fit either.
@ΙασωνI had Who in there for the longest time before I finally figured out I had to give it up
@Ιασων I've never watched a single minute of Dr. WHO, but I whipped it in there without pausing. Even kept it in the margin when forced to erase it. Worst clue/entry pair was 105D for me.
@Ιασων I entered who immediately, but was having such a good time solving, I easily morphed to DRE as soon as I got the R. Thanks, NYTXword for teaching me all I know about rappers🙄
One of the most delightful puzzles I’ve ever had the pleasure to solve. Figured out the stilettoed parent and the rest unfolded into a lovely little wedding album.
[INDOOR - A sun-drenched chamber in Elsinore Castle. OPHELIA is hunched over a large sheet of paper, furrowing her brow. It is the NEW YORICK TIMES SUNDAY WORDSQUARE.] OPHELIA: O, woe is me. T'have seen what I have seen, see what I see! (She gestures wildly at the wordsquare puzzle, her hands trembling.) OPHELIA (cont.): This… this… labyrinth of letters! This tyranny of tiny boxes! I have wrestled with kings and princes, yet this... this "theme" defies my very soul! "Nine Letters, "Vintage racket?"? What vintner's goods could possibly fit the pattern? Is it Mead? Nay, too short! Wine? Five letters astray! I am lost! (Hamlet enters, carrying a quill pen.) HAMLET: Ophelia, fair Ophelia. What troubles you this morn? Is it the weight of the court? OPHELIA: (She throws the puzzle down in exasperation.) Nay, Hamlet! 'Tis this infernal wordsquare! It mocks me! It whispers secrets of forgotten facts and esoteric knowledge! "A five-letter word for an obscure catcher of unagi," it says! "A six-letter word for a breed of young pig!" My knowledge of pigs is shamefully lacking, my lord! HAMLET: (Picking up the puzzle, trying to appear helpful.) Ah, the Sunday puzzle. A challenge, indeed. Let me see. "Catcher of unagi"… Hmm. An eel of the East, "A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the eel that hath fed of that worm". HAMLET: FORSOOTH! A Character in "The Crown"! Heavy is the head that wears the crown, dear Ophelia. Hmm, Lady Anne appears here. (Cont'd)
@replay Nicely done! Is the rest of it stuck in the land of emus? Fie!
@replay Hamlet, exhilirated at this rush of wordplay, makes a snap decision to abdicate his princehood and go into… apiculture. But, being Hamlet, he of course has to think it over for a bit… ~ ~ "To bee, or not to bee— that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the hive to suffer The stings and arrows of outrageous porkchops [Hamlet's a mite peckish atm] Or to tape up arms against a sea of bumbles, And by the roses, friend them. To fly, to keep— No sores; and bees I keep to stay, bees end The heart-ache and the thousand natural hocks [again, peckish] That flesh is heir to, it is a consommé [like I say, peckish] so Devoutly to be dished. Two pies, two leeks— Two leeks— perchance some cream: ay, there's the dry rub, For toward those leeks so wet what bees may come… [suddently, a huge colony of bees sniff out the pot of clover honey Hamlet has stuck his entire arm into to stave off hunger and they surround him, buzzing iambically. Hamlet doesn't notice] —Soft you now, the fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons— bee! BEE! BEEE! BEEEEES! RUUUNNNN! *exit, pursued by a bee*
I never thought I would be able to say this about a Sunday puzzle…..but I thought this was fun. Not easy (for me) …but for the first time I enjoyed it . I have a hunch I’ll be pulling my hair out next Sunday so I’m going to savor the moment!! Hahaha
I just love the family collaborations. It adds something so pure and nostalgic and cozy and delightful to the solve. Thank you both for this one. Smile on my face is big. 👍 👍
This was not only one of the most entertaining Sunday puzzles I’ve encountered, it produced one of the most lively comments sections, as well. So many great puns! I’ll be picturing Mother in Lawn for a long time… 🤣
This puzzle really has an attitude about weddings, no? GRIFTREGISTRY, BEASTMAN, WEDDINGDURESS... I loved it. Really an amazingly delightful solve. My only problem was I was pretty severely naticked at 50D and 61A. Airport letters are hard to make a reasonable guess about, and I know palm trees like a polar bear.
@Francis Airport letters? You just need to fly to or through New York a few times. I remember Newark as being a pretty horrible place to change planes, but it was a long time ago.
@Francis I was wondering if that cluing was backwards. It would be like saying DFW is the alternative to Dallas Love Field, when DFW is the much bigger and much more annoying airport.
@Francis I always figure any airport in the NYT xword is LGA unless proven otherwise.
Eric, Unless I missed it, the article in your link does not really explain why "Newark" is EWR. Like, why doesn't it start with an N? One thing needs to be added: When airport codes switched from two letters to three, the Navy reserved all codes starting with N. NEWaRk, then, used the other letters in its name to make EWR.
Fun puns but I don’t get the real Lulu = oner, one r? clue at all and Google didn’t help me
@Caitie I Googled ‘oner’ and found it’s a brand of leggings. So, I’m guessing the ‘lulu’ is a reference to Lululemon.
@Caitie "lulu" and "oner" are both slang words for something unique, outstanding, or extraordinary.
When "googling" for definitions of words, add the word definition after the word. Doing this for ONER and [Lulu] will take you to dictionaries with the words.
@Caitie agreed. When crossed with some 80s tennis player, it was a real natick.
Congratulations on your NYT debut, Hannah Margolin, and on your relatively recent marriage! I hope you and your spouse have many happy years together! My Diary of a Crossword Fiend review of this charming puzzle: <a href="https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/06/21/sunday-june-22-2025" target="_blank">https://crosswordfiend.com/2025/06/21/sunday-june-22-2025</a>/
Eric, I agree that it was a charming puzzle. I also found it an easy puzzle. I hope everyone who likes charming and easy Sunday puzzles is pleased with this one. (Re: 61A Right now I'd take any alternative to EWR.)
@Eric Hougland Typos on Sunday are the worst! How I dread getting the "amiss" message and having to pore through the (extra large) grid to find the error of my ways!
Misled. Kinda like how I thought my wedding would be less than a certain dollar amount.
@Red Carpet Or my home renovation project. (My wedding--46 years ago--might have been over budget, but I had no idea. My mother-in-law paid for it.)
@Red Carpet The cost of wedding “must haves” and the pressure on the bride to demonstrate love and commitment with spending is yet another example of American capitalism infecting a joyous occasion with guilt and stress. I wonder if young couples today are so buried in student loan debt that they have to be sensible?
Great fun here. Lots of clever wordplay but I laughed the loudest at the silliest answer -- the beast man. As for non themers the clue for inter was really deep.
Not the trickiest Sunday grid but still a delightful one. Love the wedding-y theme. Joining others in the wedding coincidence file, I spent this morning with daughter and sister in law, who’s the florist, at the wedding venue planning the floral arrangements. Good fun. Got the gist with SHAVE THE DATE, had fun working out the rest. 117A made me chuckle. We’re getting a couple of SHOATS next year, heading for the freezer come Autumn. They will be dubbed Apple and Sauce. Yum.
@Helen Wright My mother took over the flower duties at my wedding, as it looked like the mother of the bride was going to cheap out on that. At the time, my dad was her boss, so there was a weird dynamic.
@Caitlin Lovinger Besides the fact that it has too many letters, the answer to 101A could not have been weedingPLANNER because you'd have to remove one of the Ds from wedding, and the theme requires us to add one letter to the phrase, not subtract anything. But you probably figured that out. I got DOOKed by MISLED. I heard it in my head as "missiled" and it wasn't until I was reading the comments and saw the word written in context that I got it. I wouldn't say I've ever felt misled by clues. Misdirected, yes. I had AwOkE before AROSE, which worked at first because I also had AVow before AVER, and kept trying to think of another Ric since the K in OCASEK seemed to be in the wrong place. I'm just tired. Spent the day SASHAYing around a theme park with friends and nursing a very strong cocktail, but not from a COCONUT. I hardly ever drink these days, so between that and the sun and screaming MADLY on roller coasters, I'm ready for bed. You know I'm tired because I just looked at the puzzle again and wondered what REAIMS (pronounced "ree-ims") means.
@Beth in Greenbelt Good to see someone else misreads clues. Awoke/Arose/Avow/Aver...exactly the same thing. I'd bet that close to 20% of solvers went through that. Yeah. That's pretty tired.
@Beth in Greenbelt RE-AIM your search when the sneaky weakies get you.
Mickey Rooney said it’s best to get married in the morning, because if it doesn’t work out, you haven’t wasted the whole day.
@John Dietsch He would know a thing or two (or eight) about getting married.
@John Dietsch I was on the elevator with Mickey Rooney once, in the Boston area when he was on tour doing Sugar Babies. I really wanted to ask him about Ava Gardner after we got off but he was too busy hitting on the gift shop lady. Those drummers, all the same. 🙄
This was a fun puzzle to solve on my 29th wedding anniversary! Like marriage, some parts were more enjoyable than others. Some groaners and some real head scratchers, but worth sticking it out.
@Lisa Marshall thanks for bringing back my memories of New York State… I worked in Ithaca for a decade or so.
@Lisa Marshall Congratulations and happy anniversary!
Does anyone else see the answer to 4-down in a different color? Mine is pea green when highlighted, rather than the typical blue. Color me confused
@Abby Several people have noticed this. I just posted a hypothesis that the green represents "undetermined" at the Gender REVEAL party.
Clever puns. I especially like 'grift registry' - I've been invited to a few of those parties!
Mother and daughter duo. How great is that. Excellent puzzle.
I had been done with the puzzle for almost an hour before I realized that the "Leo" who works for MGM Studios is not "DiCaprio", but the lion who roars at the start of every MGM movie. Anyone else? Or am I just slow this morning?
@The X-Phile I would still be thinking that if not for your post.....
@The X-Phile In a sea of puzzlement, that was a "OMG one I know!" moment for me. (Or at least, as soon as I could remember which studio had Leo the Lion in its opening credit---I had a brief episode of excitement-induced amnesia.)
@The X-Phile the MGM lion has been Leo for much longer than Leonardo's been Leo. Does any actor actually work for any particular studio these days? I thought that practice had long disappeared with the demise of the studio system. I'm not at all sure whose names appear on the contract these days. Any show-biz types out there who know how it works?
@The X-Phile My astrological sign is Leo , so was a no brainer for me
Wowser-dowser! (As DHubby is prone to say.) Would you believe it?! My final entry was TADA! This was really fun, and the sly clues were especially clever. What's the most unique WEDDING you have ever been to? Our son and his fianceé and friends planned their Masquerade Wedding--on Halloween--and guests were encouraged to come in costume. (We were DON the DON with his MOLL.) Great fun! Oh, the puzzle. A-Plus! More, please!
@Mean Old Lady, Don the Don and MOL the Moll! I love it! 😄
@Mean Old Lady I was married on October 29, and there was considerable duress to have a Halloween theme, T'm not sure the vicar would have approved.
@Mean Old Lady Not sure how unique it was but my daughter's wedding was absolutely perfect from my perspective. She was married in France (where she now lives) and had a small party with about 20 family members. The best part was the feast afterwards that lasted several hours. We even took a break to go for a walk and burn off some of the food, then came back and ate more! When in France, it's all about the food!