History Main / AccidentalProposal

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In "Prisoners of Love", Jake and Finn have rescued the Princesses from the Ice King and are taken them home when Finn makes a vague remark that the Slime Princess interprets as a proposal and accepts. Fin is too startled to say anything so Jake comes up with an EmbarrassingCoverup to persuade the Slime Princess that she doesn't want to marry him.

* When "Mrs. Davis Reads Tea Leaves", due to Mrs. Davis' fortunetelling and some ExactEavesdropping, Radio/OurMissBrooks'' thinks that Mr. Boynton is going to propose marriage and they start their life of wedded bliss at the old honeymoon cottage outside town. Unfortunately, he's really proposing they start a summer camp together at the old honeymoon cottage outside town.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In "Prisoners of Love", Jake and fin have rescued the Princesses from the Ice King and are taken them home when Finn makes a vague remark that the Slime Princess interprets as a proposal and accepts. Fin is too startled to say anything so Jake comes up with an EmbarrassingCoverup to persuade the Slime Princess that she doesn't want to marry him.

* In ''Literature/{{Gate}}'' an offered handshake is seen as a proposal by citizens of the empire, leading to some amusing moments during the peace negotiations.

* In ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/26135083/chapters/63581914 Havfruen Og Bein]]'', shortly after [[spoiler:becoming a mermaid]], [[Film/{{Bumblebee}} Charlie]] finds a pearl, then meets Thundercracker (who is a mermech in this story), who tries to attack her. In an attempt to stop the attack, Charlie offers him the pearl she found, unaware that offering a pearl to someone is the mermech method of proposing to someone. She's pretty embarrassed when she learns her mistake.

** A sparkling wine flute containing a ring was delivered to Ted and Robin's table while they were on the first anniversary date, rather than the table next to theirs. When Robin sees it she yells "Noo, no no no no no no no, No! No, no no no, no, no, No!"

* In ''VideoGame/BravelySecond'', when Yew Geneolgia first meets Magnolia Arch, she's unconscious in the wreckage of her spaceship, and Yew uses a flower from a nearby magnolia tree to wake her up. When Magnolia wakes up, she accepts the flower he used as a gift. It later is revealed that, on the moon (where Magnolia is from), flowers are considered rare and valuable, and offering one as a gift is equivalent to a marriage proposal. As such, Magnolia spends a fair amount of time thinking that Yew had pledged to marry her.

* ''WebComic/UseSwordOnMonster'': Humphrey thought he was just helping a captive stand up, and then Maga nailed him with a [[http://www.useswordonmonster.com/?comic=2013-05-17 magical betrothal-binding]]. (Deliberate on her part, because the binding means she and Humphrey now share each others' pain... and she's expecting the [=DHSS=] to try torturing information out of her.)

* In the ''WesternAnimation/CatDog'' movie in which the eponymous characters look for their parents, they wind up in a place where cats and dogs cohabitate peacefully, although they are all hillbillies. After drinking some [[FrothyMugsOfWater root beer]], Cat burps in the face of a female dog, who tells her dad and a wedding is arranged.

* "Is It College Yet?", the SeriesFinale of ''WesternAnimation/{{Daria}}'', features a subplot where Ms. Barch mistakes Mr. O'Neill's attempts at sympathy regarding her ex-husband as a marriage proposal.

* In ''WesternAnimation/Ben10Omniverse'', Ben challenges the Tetramand princess Looma Red Wind to a battle to prevent her marriage to Kevin. He doesn't find out until after defeating her that in her culture, [[BestHerToBedHer females are betrothed to whoever defeats them in combat]]. Kevin and Looma's wedding is called off and Ben unwittingly ends up engaged to her in Kevin's place.
* In ''WesternAnimation/PopeyeAndSon'', this is how Bluto ended up married to his wife Lizzie - during one of his attempts to sabotage Popeye and Olive's wedding, he stole the wedding ring, and due to a convoluted series of events, ended up at the site of the wedding ceremony. Lizzie saw the ring, which he was holding, and believed he was proposing to her - having always thought of him as a "dreamboat", she accepted, and had the ceremony started immediately.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/NightmareNed'' episode "Until Undeath Do Us Apart", Ned dreams that he winds up engaged to a zombie through hilarious circumstances.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheAmazingWorldOfGumball'': In "The Butterfly", after Rocky gets hit with Doughnutt Sheriff's shoe while holdind a bagel in a DisasterDominoes scenario, he finds himself near a crocodile lady holding the bagel in a way that makes it look like he's proposing to her. She accepts, which confuses Rocky.
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'': In "Prisoners of Love", Jake and fin have rescued the Princesses from the Ice King and are taken them home when Finn makes a vague remark that the Slime Princess interprets as a proposal and accepts. Fin is too startled to say anything so Jake comes up with an EmbarrassingCoverup to persuade the Slime Princess that she doesn't want to marry him.

* This trope kicks off the plot of ''Manga/UruseiYatsura''. During a competition to determine the fate of the Earth, Ataru's girlfriend promises to marry him if he wins. After defeating his female alien competitor Lum, he says how glad he is that he can get married. Lum thinks he's talking about marrying her, falls in love with him and accepts his "proposal".
* In ''Anime/TamakoMarket'', [[TalkingAnimal Dera]] [[CrashIntoHello colliding with Tamako's face]] causes her to sneeze violently; and apparently Dera's culture interprets sneezing at someone as a declaration of courtship towards them. Dera assesses the situation accordingly.
* In ''LightNovel/KyoKaraMaoh'', [[{{Tsundere}} Wolfram]] badmouths [[UnluckyEverydude Yuuri's]] mom, and Yuuri gets mad. Instead of punching Wolfram, Yuuri [[ArmorPiercingSlap slaps him]] across the left cheek (apparently, Wolfram is too much of a {{Bishounen}} to punch). What Yuuri doesn't know is that slapping someone across the left cheek is how at least the noble classes propose marriage in Shin Makokou. When he finds out, Yuuri is horrified, but Wolfram (and darn near all the other characters too) takes the engagement ''very'' seriously.
* The ''Manga/RurouniKenshin'' anime has a {{filler}} episode devoted to this trope, as Kenshin is told by his friends to give his girlfriend Kaoru a ring he found in a fish he caught. Kenshin had never heard of the Western custom of proposing with a ring, but Kaoru had--the poor girl believes this to be an engagement proposal. By the end of the episode, though, all is confessed (and the ring is returned to the original owner, who was this close [[SpurnedIntoSuicide to killing himself]] because he threw it away after a fight with his fiance, but now can give it back to her and she wears it proudly) ...and poor Kaoru is so disappointed that [[ComfortFood she's seen stuffing her face in the Akebeko]] to try cheering herself up. There's still a sweet scene at the end where Kenshin makes up with her by bringing her flowers, though.
* ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' has [[AnimeChineseGirl Shampoo's]] village of Joketsuzoku; according to the rulebook, not only is she supposed to give a KissOfDeath to any non-Joketsuzoku girl who defeats her, but she's also supposed to marry any non-Joketsuzoku guy who defeats her. Between being a guy who defeated her in front of her whole village (admittedly in the wrong form, thanks to his GenderBender curse), followed by knocking her out cold again in male form in her first appearance in Japan, Shampoo and her great-grandmother insist that Ranma is engaged to her.
* Rito Yuuki from ''Manga/ToLoveRu'' accidentally fondled [[CuteMonsterGirl Cute Alien Princess]] Lala's breasts when she teleported into his bathtub, which is a proposal of marriage in her culture. [[spoiler:When it actually comes time to go through with it, Lala, having known all along he didn't want to marry her and that his earlier confession was meant for someone else, backs off. At first she had been using him as an excuse not to have to go through with other marriage arrangements, but had quickly fallen for him and in the end didn't want to force him into anything.]]

* In ''Manga/{{Nisekoi}}'', Raku and Chitoge are walking together and Chitoge sees a sign advertising a certain charm that a man can give a woman to propose. Just then, Raku gets his hands on one of these charms. Thinking nothing of it, he casually hands it to her. He has no idea why she is freaking out, until he sees the sign and freaks out as well, desperately explaining it was a misunderstanding.

* In ''Literature/{{Gate}}'' an offered handshake is seen as a proposal by citizens of the empire, leading to some amusing moments during the peace negotiations.

* After viewing a particularly emotional piece, [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic Vinyl Scratch tells Octavia]] she'd like to go on a "tour that lasts forever." Literally every other character in the Blog/ReadingRainbowverse interprets this as a proposal and starts preparing for her wedding, leading to Vinyl freaking out and locking herself in Fluttershy's bathroom.
* ''FanFic/SixBridesForTwoSisters'': It is revealed that Princess Celestia offered to officiate Twilight’s wedding back when Twilight was still a filly under her tutelage. Due to a poor choice of wording on Celestia’s part, Twilight has been living under the assumption that Celestia intends to marry her when Twilight decides she is ready. Celestia herself is quite stunned when she realizes that ''everyone'', including Twilight, thought it was a proposal.
* In the ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' fanfiction ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/4742802/1/Culture-Shock Culture Shock]]'', Megatron beats up Starscream (yet again), then offers the Seeker assistance in standing in an attempt to be condescending... only to learn that in the Seeker's hometown of Vos, such an act is considered an offer for a permanent bond. Starscream accepts the "proposal", and the trine makes it clear that refusing to participate is a bad idea, so he has no choice but to go through with it.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9264139/1/Urusei-Yatsura-Love-to-Skate Urusei Yatsura: Love to Skate!]]'', the OriginalCharacter who replaces [[Manga/UruseiYatsura Ataru]] in that fateful game of tag rhetorically asks if he should propose to Lum... only for the last part of the conversation to be picked up via microphone and overheard by Lum.
* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11144592/1/Lum-Sum-Purple Lum Sum Purple]]'', [[Manga/RanmaOneHalf Shampoo]] is chosen to be Lum's opponent in the tag game. While she wins, she is angry at having been humiliated twice, and gives Lum the Kiss of Death--unfortunately for Shampoo, the Oni interpret it as the Kiss of Marriage, and declare Lum and Shampoo married.
* In the b-plot to the ''[[Fanfic/MegsFamilySeries Meg's Family]]'' chapter "Family Goth", after Maddie and Stewie get freed from a finger trap, Cody lies and tells them that in Chinese custom that since their fingers touched they're engaged. They get "married", and when Stewie actually wants to make the relationship work, Cody has a MyGodWhatHaveIDone moment when he realizes that an uncle and niece are acting like they're really married.
* [[http://rikoudu.deviantart.com/art/Ring-529969466 This]] piece of WesternAnimation/GravityFalls fanart. For those too lazy to click on the link, Pacifia accidentally drops her ring, and when Dipper tries to return it to her, she thinks he's asking her to marry him.
* There are so many ''Film/TheHobbit'' fanfics about this that it may well be considered its own genre. Fanon has it that dwarves have complicated courting customs and of course it almost never occurs to them that Bilbo might not be familiar with those.

* Chapter 28 from ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7845142/28/Thirty-Tales-of-a-Swordsman Thirty Tales of a Swordsman]]'' sees the Strawhats end up on an island where a man has to offer some heirloom item to the girl then ask for her family to come get her for the wedding preparation. Zoro inadvertantly fulfills both conditions when he helps some fruit merchant girl, giving her a dropped necklace - he thought it was hers - and asking if she needs someone to come for her - as, does she need a doctor. The whole village immediately starts the wedding preparation and poor Zoro almost finds himself married. Fortunately - for him - Luffy disagrees as the wedding would mean Zoro wouldn't be able to adventure with the Strawhats anymore.
* In the WesternAnimation/MiraculousLadybug fanfic ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11801883/1/An-Indirect-Proposal An Indirect Proposal]]'', Adrien says he would marry the person who made the pastry he ate, and ends up accidentally proposing to Marinette.
* Played with in ''[[https://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-15918-14/Nerdgirl+Xander+the+Maou.htm Xander the Maou]]'', when Xander gets tired of dealing with [[Franchise/StargateVerse Senator Kinsey]] and pretends slapping someone (which Kinsey just did) is a marriage proposal in his culture. Considering Xander is technically royalty, Kinsey is ReassignedToAntarctica for potentially causing a diplomatic nightmare.

* Since Sona Sitri canonically swore she would marry only the man who would beat her at chess, ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12497150/1/Different-DxD Different DxD]]'' throws her in a tizzy when Issei manages it, and she refuses to talk about it for one year. Issei is quite surprised when he learns he's technically betrothed to her, but decides to go through the agreement since Sona made friends with him over the year and they came to fall in love.
* In the snippet ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12903311/1/ Customs of Mandalore]]'', Ezra is disappointed that Sabine didn't even hug him goodbye, only for the others to tell him (between bouts of gut-busting laughter) that he gave her his weapon during a battle, which on Mandalore is considered a marriage proposal as your putting someone else's life ahead of yours. While it only applies to someone close to you, Ezra and Sabine fulfill the requirements and since she accepted his weapon, they're now officially engaged.

* In ''FanFic/AlphaAndOmegaFanfic'', Shinji asks Aria to be his bond mate without realizing it's the equivalent of marriage.
* Inverted in the Franchise/{{Transformers}} fanfic ''[[https://archiveofourown.org/works/5979817 Cross-Cultural Contamination]]'': Trailbreaker fully intended to propose to Mirage when he gave Mirage a box of electric blue candy, but Mirage had no idea that by eating it he was accepting Trailbreaker's proposal. He doesn't mind being engaged when he finds out, but he is quite upset at misinterpreting the gesture, so he proposes to Trailbraker using his own tradition.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13061895/4/Dynasty Dynasty]]'', half-Cardassian Harriet was raised human and as such didn't thought that insults could be misconstrued for flirting, or punching the boy who just insulted her was basically equivalent to a betrothal. Cue poor besotted Mekor asking if she would like for their Bonding to be held in his ancestral house.

* ''WesternAnimation/FrozenII'': PlayedForLaughs when Kristoff sees what appears to be Princess Anna's silhouette approaching and makes a grand, romantic proposal with several reindeer and his wingman Ryder helping. The person steps into the light and is revealed to be Yelena, who awkwardly tells him, "No."

* ''Film/{{Leap Year|1921}}'': Poor Stanley does this three times in rapid succession on Catalina, gaining three unwanted fiancées. He kind of brings it on himself, like when he tells Molly "what you need is a husband" after Molly has a breakup with her boyfriend.

* In the seventh ''Literature/CiaphasCain'' novel, Cain does this to the daughter of a noble (who's after a husband so she can stake her claim as the governer of her homeworld) by basically nodding his head and going "uh-huh?" through one conversation too many when she's hinting at it. He wouldn't really mind it since it means a life of ease with an attractive woman, but he can't actually resign his commission. [[spoiler: He gets out of it when she dumps him for the leader of a nearby planet.]]

* ''Literature/TheCaseOfTheToxicSpellDump'' has a similar case when, upon arriving on a crime scene with his girlfriend, David introduces her as his fiancee to avoid complaints. On their way home, both agree that they wouldn't mind.
* In ''[[Literature/JohnCarterOfMars A Princess of Mars]]'', John Carter becomes engaged to Dejah Thoris after she calls him "my chieftain" and he responds by calling her "my princess", with him not knowing what the exchange of those terms means. It takes him some time to work out why she becomes so upset with him.
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''Literature/TheNumberOfTheBeast''. While dancing together, Zebadiah Carter and Deety Burroughs enjoy a passionate tango together. Zebadiah says "Whew! After a tango like that the couple ought to get married." Deety takes him completely seriously (not realizing he was just joking) and accepts his proposal.
* In Louisa May Alcott's ''[[Literature/LittleWomen Jo's Boys]]'', Tommy accidentally proposes to Dora while still thinking himself in love with Nan, who had resolved to become a doctor and so to never marry. He is unable to contradict her on the spot, and the effect of the engagement is to shake him out of ObliviousToLove. (Nan makes up a basket of medical supplies for a wedding present, knowing Dora will need it for his accidents.)

* In ''Literature/TheElenium'', Sparhawk uses two near-identical ruby rings in order to save Queen Ehlana's life. One is traditionally worn by his family line, and the other by hers. Later he tries to return the ring to her, only for Ehlana to spot it's actually his family's ring rather than hers. She leaps on the mistake in order to make good on her [[WifeHusbandry childhood ambition of marrying him]].
* ''Literature/DiaryOfAWimpyKidTheUglyTruth'': During Uncle Gary's wedding to Sonja, Gary's best man Leonard reveals that Gary was actually planning to break up with Sonja during the baseball game they were attending and start dating her sister instead, but before he could do that a plane flew overhead with a banner saying "Marry Me Sonja?" Thinking it was from Gary, Sonja accepted. Gary would have told her the truth, but he was afraid the guys around his seat would beat him up if he let Sonja down.

* ''Literature/CaptainUnderpants and the Wrath of the Wicked Wedgie Woman'': George and Harold write a fake marriage proposal from Principal Krupp in Ms. Ribble's retirement card. The pair are too flummoxed to protest, and the staff arranges a wedding for them.

* ''Literature/AmaranthineSaga'': For obvious reasons, the main plot of ''Kimiko and the Accidental Proposal'' involves one of these. Kimiko gives a comb to Eloquence Starmark (which in itself was an accident, as she had actually brought sweets, but they were eaten by his little brother), without knowing that a tailcomb is a highly traditional betrothal gift. In this case, Eloquence (and it's implied his father and the other adults as well) realize it's a mistake, but he convinces Kimiko to go through with it, because his role in the clan forbids him from pursuing a mate--but he IS permitted to be pursued.
* ''Literature/CradleSeries'':
** When they first meet, Yerin asks Lindon to swear a mystical vow to help each other. Lindon hesitates, because that particular wording is typically used for mystical marriage vows in his clan (though not always; the vow can be used for anything, and his own parents didn't use it when they got married). Yerin is clearly completely unaware of the implications, so he doesn't say anything about it.
** In book 7, Yerin and Lindon are both rewarded customizable cloudships. Lindon points out that they could do a lot better if they combine their rewards into one ship. Yerin stares at him, and it takes him a minute to realize he just asked her to build a home with him. [[ShipTease He doesn't rescind the offer, though]].
* ''Literature/HeraldsOfValdemar'': Early in ''Storm Rising'', the town council of Shonar asks Tremaine if some of his troops could possibly help with the harvest. Tremaine agrees, then realizes he'll need to have his volunteers briefed on local courting customs since they'll be working side by side with farm women -- he doesn't want any issues with one person thinking they're in a casual relationship and the other thinking they're engaged.

* ''Webcomic/AxisPowersHetalia'':

* In ''[[Literature/{{Magic20}} Out of Spite, Out of Mind]]'', Martin accidentally sort-of proposes to Gwen. They spend the rest of the book avoiding one another. They eventually talk it out, and the book ends with them getting married in a ''Film/{{Dune}}''-themed wedding.