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A childhood betrothal turns out to be true love.
"Yesterday, my mom and dad told me I was getting engaged to the grandson of my grandfather's best friend. We're Japanese-American so it wasn't that unusual. So today I met my new fiance and realized that it was the same guy that I spent 3 hours with on Facebook, debating whether Pokémon was better than Yu-Gi-Oh!. I think it's fate."

Nowadays, you have to expect the bride and groom to object to an Arranged Marriage. Commit for life to someone they might not like, or even know? No way. They'll tear their clothes, gnash their teeth, lock themselves in their rooms, and swear that they'll never, everis that them necking in the atrium?

Sometimes the couple who have been so strenuously unhappy about their betrothal discover they not only like but love each other, and it is perfectly clear that they would have paired up even if a third party hadn't put them together. Drama being what it is, you can expect one of their initial plans to undo or back out of the arranged marriage to then succeed, and their parents will set them up with a new betrothed that they truly can't stand. Expect one or both to have to swallow their pride and come out and say they want their parents' first offer after all.

A variant is that both meet outside of the home environment (before or after the declaration) without recognizing each other. Maybe they ran away from home entirely, only to happily embrace "a fellow in misery" — and later commiserate about their bossy parents. Eventually, once they recognize one another, their common experience helps them fall in love.

Sometimes this perfectly arranged marriage doesn't come about randomly, but intentionally by parents, like a Batman Gambit scenario. One or more of the parents involved who knows both well enough has arranged the marriage since both are highly compatible and could naturally fall in love. In fact, this is the purpose of an 'arranged marriage' in the first place. It is akin to a matchmaking service, and the couple will generally have some sort of courtship before tying the knot, and it's very rare for someone to be forced to marry a person they despise. Even a Gold Digger would want a decent relationship if for no other reason than to help in securing the knot.

In other cultures, however, especially feudal societies, marriages would be struck between noble houses to secure alliances, build power, get closer to the throne, etc. In cases like this, the couple's individual romantic tastes are a very low priority, as they see the marriage as a duty to their families. But then it turns out they love each other after all.

This trope is frequently used as a justification for the use of the Arranged Marriage and Altar Diplomacy tropes to audiences with Western sensibilities, who are often uncomfortable with the concept of forced marriage. It's not a violation of free will if both want to get married, after all.

Compare Marriage Before Romance for when a couple has gone through with a marriage for other reasons than love and only then starts to develop feelings for one another. Expect a lot of arguing and bickering to contrast with the more idealised love story of the unwed, ending in a big Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other moment, to the surprise of everyone, most of all themselves. Can go hand-and-hand with Childhood Friend Romance if the betrothed pair grew up together.


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    Asian Animation 
  • Earlier seasons of Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf imply that the main villain Wolffy and his wife Wolnie dated each other before becoming Happily Married, but the third film retcons it into an arranged marriage. In the film, Wolnie works at a canteen before she meets Wolffy. The canteen prepares a horrible-tasting plate of fried rice and tells all the male wolves in the building that if any of them can eat the whole thing, they'll get to marry Wolnie. Wolffy, who misses this announcement, sneaks into the canteen to eat the fried rice. Cue Wolffy and Wolnie getting married and being happy with each other.

    Comic Books 
  • Alone: Saul and Camille, per the former's group's rule, ends up being married. As they spend time together, they genuinely fall in love with each other, with Camille being Saul's Morality Pet. Up until Saul ends up being the champion of the First Families and of Good while Camille is the "Midnight-Child", champion of the Last Families and of Evil. And even then, it's clear Saul still loves Camille. It's a bit more unclear on Camille's side of things, though.
  • Gambit and his ex-wife Bella Donna Boudreaux met when the two were both eight years old, before they would be betrothed to one another to end the feud between the Thieves' and Assassins' Guilds. The two became best friends naturally and deeply loved each other. Gambit only left her behind because he didn't want to take her away from everything and everyone she loved.
  • Doctor Strange's manservant Wong was betrothed as a child to a girl who wasn't even born yet. Nevertheless, he has no problem falling in love with Imei once they meet, though she dies before they can get married.
  • Played for drama in Les LĂ©gendaires: prince Halan had an arranged marriage with Jadina. She wasn't interested, so when she was demonstrated the arrangement attracted more assassination attempts than it solves conflicts, she ran away to become an adventurer magician, founding the team. Halan, on the other hand, was fond of her and sees the mission as an opportunity to get her again.
  • Runaways Vol. 2 gives us an arranged marriage Gone Horribly Right: Xavin convinces Karolina they must try in order to prevent a war. But a few issues later, war ignites despite the two of them actually loving each other.
  • This happened with the former king and queen Maximillian and Alicia Acorn in Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics). This was a case of Because Destiny Says So since the Acorn family consulted with The Source of All to decide whom the royal family should marry.

    Films — Animated 
  • The Adventures of Tom Thumb and Thumbelina: The title characters (not their names at the time) were betrothed as babies... Well, that was lucky, wasn't it! They even had a backup just in case one came home but not the other.
  • Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper: King Dominick and Princess Anneliese are betrothed, and he thinks his burgeoning romance with her is this. In reality, it's not actually Anneliese but her Identical Stranger Erika, who's disguised as her to keep the engagement on while the real princess has been kidnapped. In the end, everything works out when Anneliese returns, and Dominick and Erika marry.
  • Brave:
    • Elinor admits that she had doubts about her arranged marriage to Fergus years ago - getting a Flat "What" from her husband. But it's clear that they do love each other very much.
    • This would have been the case in earlier drafts where Merida would end up with one of her proposed suitors - Young Macguffin - but not in the finished film.
  • In Corpse Bride, Victor is apprehensive about being put into an arranged marriage... until he actually meets his bride-to-be Victoria and finds her gentle intelligence very appealing. She likewise is charmed by his excellent piano-playing and shyly genteel manners.
  • The marriage in the end of The Legend of Su-Ling. Su-Ling didn't know that Chang was actually the Emperor's son and was angry about being forced to marry him. Chang also didn't know that his father was forcing him to marry Su-Ling and he returned home so that the peasants wouldn't suffer his father's wrath. When they both saw each other, it worked out just fine.
  • A major case happens in The LEGO Movie 2: The Second Part. Queen Whatevra Wa-Nabi wants to marry Batman as a way to merge her kingdom with the LEGO Apocalypseberg - thinking Batman is the ruler of said land. Batman insists he is a permanent "Bat-chelor" and there's no way he's marrying her. Using Reverse Psychology, she says she actually wants Superman and just chose him to make Superman jealous. This causes Batman to try and outdo Superman by wooing her. Though things start off on a non-altruistic note for both, they eventually do end up falling for each other as they spend time together, and they are married at the end of the film.
  • In The Lion King, Simba and Nala both recoil a bit when they're told that they were betrothed when they're children. Simba's initial reaction has nothing to do with not liking Nala (they're best friends, after all), and everything to do with him apparently being at the Girls Have Cooties age. The cubs also bring up the point that, because they're best friends, it would be "too weird." However, neither makes much attempt to foil the marriage, as Simba goes into self-imposed exile for unrelated reasons long before it becomes an issue. When they meet again as adults, they follow the rest of the trope to the letter.
  • Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights: In the gender-flipped version of Aladdin, the Prince was supposed to marry the Princess of Serendibe but she disappeared back when she was a little girl. Aliyah-Din was eventually revealed to be the lost Princess. It's very similar to the Sleeping Beauty example below.
  • Disney's Sleeping Beauty. "Father, you're living in the past. This is the Fourteenth Century!" declares Prince Phillip. Luckily, the girl he met in the woods turns out to be the princess to whom he's been betrothed for sixteen years. It works with the princess herself as well. Aurora (aka Briar Rose) is rather understandably devastated when she finds out about her arranged marriage to Prince Phillip (not to mention that the poor girl has just found out that she's a princess, meaning her whole life up until then was a lie) until she discovers that Prince Phillip and that nice guy, she met in the forest are the same person. The True Love's Kiss that Phillip gave Aurora to wake her up certainly helps.
  • The Swan Princess toys with this, as pictured above. Prince Derek and Princess Odette, the heirs of two neighboring kingdoms, are betrothed to each other by her widowed father and his widowed mother, who are good friends and want to unite their realms. Forced to spend every summer together, the two generally dislike each other and have to be physically forced into the same space. Then one day they meet each other after puberty, and it's Love at First Sight. Derek demands that the wedding be arranged, but when Odette asks him why, he replies that she's beautiful... and when she asks, "Anything else?" he replies, "What else is there?" (Cue the mass Face Palm from the guests.) Odette promptly refuses to marry him, but they are happily married in the end, so the trope is ultimately played straight.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • In a bit of a roundabout way in Catching Fire/Mockingjay. President Snow does not arrange Peeta and Katniss's marriage per se, but they know they will have to play the role of lovebirds for the rest of their lives unless they want the Capitol to punish them (and murder their friends and family), so marriage will be inevitable. Katniss suggests the marriage in the hopes of appeasing Snow a bit and Peeta very reluctantly agrees to it (he's in love with her but doesn't want her to marry him because she has to). In the end, she marries him out of genuine love, and they live as happily ever after as a pair of deeply traumatized young adults can.
  • In Flower Drum Song (the musical adaptation), in order to get out of his Citizenship Marriage contract to Mei Li, Sammy Fong facilitates an arranged marriage between her and Wang Ta. Although Ta initially wants to marry Linda Low (who wants to marry Sammy himself) he falls for Mei Li for real.
  • In the Shaw Brothers flick Heroes Of The East, the protagonist, a Chinese martial artist named Ho Tao, is absolutely disgusted at his father's prospect at marrying him to an unknown woman of a Japanese family who is a business ally of his father... until he saw his bride, Yumiko Koda, who turns out to be absolutely gorgeous. They both end up bonding through their common knowledge of Oriental martial arts, and eventually ends up a happily married couple.
  • Inverted in the fantasy film Krull, where the hero and his girlfriend are the children of two rival kings who choose to marry against their fathers' wishes to form an alliance against the movie's Big Bad; inverted because the kids arrange it instead of the parents. The princess gets kidnapped during the wedding and the hero goes off to save her. Their love turns out to be the final weapon that offs the main villain.
  • Emperor Pu Yi and Empress Wang Rong are described as such in The Last Emperor since Pu Yi says that his dream girl is "a modern wife who could follow the new dances and was educated outside China" and she fits in perfectly. It doesn't last.
  • Not exactly marriage, but in My Sassy Girl the male lead puts off his aunt's attempts to introduce him to her late son's former girlfriend because he is already interested in the female lead. The female lead meanwhile has been putting off meeting her dead boyfriend's cousin at his mother's request because of her budding interest in the male lead. At the end of the movie, it's revealed that the male lead's aunt is the female lead's dead boyfriend's mother. This startling coincidence convinces the pair to give their romance another chance.
  • In What's Love Got to Do with It? (2022), Kaz's brother Farooq and his wife are both happy in their arranged marriage. In their interviews it's established that they had a lot of common interests and were in similar social circles but just hadn't crossed paths until their engagement.
  • Sissi (1955) describes Sisi and Franz's love deals as this, as the Lonely Rich Kid Emperor is fascinated by the Manic Pixie Dream Girl lead female who comes as her Proper Lady older sister/his betrothed's traveling companion. She's smitten back with him but is reluctant to accept his feelings because she doesn't want to hurt her beloved older sister, so he plays a small Batman Gambit to get her engaged to him instead and, after Sisi is a bit more comfortable in the imperial court, they get married. In Real Life, however, things weren't exactly that way: Sisi never got used to the strict etiquette and that badly affected her; both had affairs; two of their children died; and even after their relationship was somewhat more stable, Sisi was stabbed to death in Switzerland, and Franz never got over it.
  • Vivah: Prem and Poonam meet for a prospective marriage at the behest of their respective father figures, but when the two meet they're charmed by each other and soon agree to get engaged. The two only fall deeper in love throughout the film.

    Live-Action TV 
  • George and Susan on Alien Nation, being former slaves, were paired up by an overseer.
  • On Angel. Not exactly a marriage, but Cordelia's objections to her required ritual "com-shuk" with the "Groosalug" get a lot less strenuous once she gets a good look at him, and even less so once they start to talk. A very sweet (if eventually doomed) relationship results.
  • Downton Abbey:
    • Sort of. There is no arranged engagement between Mary and Matthew, but her parents and grandmother seem to think it would be awfully convenient if they fell in love (their marriage would keep the estate in the family), and they do everything they can to facilitate it. They do fall in love, though Mary regards the family's meddling as more an impediment to their eventual marriage than helpful.
    • In the backstory, Lord and Lady Grantham are themselves a quasi-example: although there was no direct arrangement between their families, Robert married Cora for her money and her money alone. Cora loved Robert from the beginning, and Robert quickly (by which we mean about a year after the marriage) grew to feel the same towards her, to the point where he became deeply ashamed of his initial motivations. By the time we meet them, they're clearly happy together.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • Myrcella Baratheon is shipped off to Dorne for a marriage alliance, due to her uncle Tyrion's machinations — or rather, to keep House Martell from marching against House Lannister, as well as to protect Myrcella herself from any dangers lurking in King's Landing — and is seen crying as she sails away, with her mother Cersei vehemently opposed to the idea. However, by the time of "Game Of Thrones S 5 E 6 Unbowed Unbent Unbroken," she is very much in love with Trystane Martell, who reciprocates that love, and they cannot wait to get married. Too bad for them that the families' feud isn't over...
      Jaime: You're lucky. Arranged marriages are rarely so... so well arranged.
    • Zigzagged with Daenerys Targaryen's betrothal to Khal Drogo. It's initially subverted, in that she's not happy to go with him at first and their wedding night is consummated against her will, but then played straight in that gradually they get happier; by "Lord Snow," they seem pretty damn happy together and are expecting their first child before happy times go down the drain. It's then double subverted in The Queen's Justice, where a livid Daenerys recounts "being raped" as one of the indignities she suffered to regain her throne, which reveals she never did forget or necessarily forgive Drogo for their wedding night.
    • According to the History and Lore videos, Catelyn Tully believed she would have this with Brandon Stark, to whom she was initially betrothed. She ended up having this with his younger brother Ned when Brandon was murdered; although their marriage was political, they're mostly very compatible. There was a major setback at the beginning when Ned brought home another woman's child, though it later turned out that the child wasn't even his and he wasn't guilty of adultery—but she eventually got over this "adultery" anyway and after that their marriage was pretty smooth sailing.
    • Edmure Tully and Roslin Frey appear to be this at first, but it gets subverted when it turns out the Freys are just invoking this trope to catch their guests off guard.
    • How Sansa initially views her engagement to Joffrey. In Season 3, Sansa thinks that Loras would be an ideal husband for her when they're betrothed.
    • Joffrey likewise thinks of his engagement to Margaery as this, as he grows to like her well before they're married. Too bad he's oblivious to the fact that she knows he's a monster.
  • The Golden Girls: Rose's cousin Sven is scheduled for an arranged marriage but falls for Blanche instead. When the arranged bride shows up, she's a gorgeous Swedish girl, and he drops Blanche like a hot potato.
  • Legend of the Seeker: In the episode Identity, Shota the Witch-Woman swaps Richard's body with that of Gryff, an idealistic son of a merchant friend of Kahlan's who both are secret allies of the resistance, soon to be married off to a woman, from a Pro-Rahl family, he has never met, something he is regretting. While stuck in Gryff's identity, Richard finds out that Gryff's fiancee, Bronwyn, also deposes Rahl, something she has hid from her family, and is a variable Action Girl, matching Gryff's proficiency in swordplay, who also hopes to fight the D'haran for the Seekers cause. After Shota's magic is reserved, Gryff properly meets his wife and it is heavily implied the two will indeed fall in love with each other, and serve as members of the resistance together.
  • The aim of the reality series Married At First Sight, which arranges marriages between strangers based on compatibility. And they don't even meet until the day of the wedding. Surprisingly enough, some couples did stay together after the show.
  • Merlin.
    • Uther promises Arthur to Princess Elena, who comes with her father for the wedding. She is quite a nice person, even when unknowingly being possessed by a faerie. She and Arthur get along very well but realize there is zero romantic attraction between them, so they mutually agree to call off the wedding and part amicably.
    • After Guinevere is Mistaken for Cheating and banished from Camelot, Arthur becomes engaged to Princess Mithian on the rebound. She's beautiful, charming, and witty. She effortlessly integrates herself at court and proves herself to be quite politically savvy. Their marriage will solve the land dispute between their kingdoms. They get along well and have plenty of things in common. In many ways, she's designed to be a better match for Arthur than Guinevere, and had they met at any other time or place (or in any other story) they probably would have ended up Happily Married. But unfortunately for Mithian, Arthur comes to realize that he's still deeply in love with Guinevere, and can't bring himself to give her up - not even for the perfect woman.
  • Peaky Blinders: John Shelby and Esme Lee are married off to one another to bring their families together and stop an all-out war. John is none too pleased when he first finds out but doesn't mind much when he sees that Esme is beautiful. They seem quite happy together after a little while and genuinely love one another. (John’s eye does wander a little after a few years, but not much, and not near as much as usual for a gangster.)
  • Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story: Half similar to its real life history. Both Charlotte and George were initially reluctant to be married against their will. However, upon meeting and introducing themselves, they agree to the marriage. Despite George’s erratic behavior due to his mental illness/madness, it is obvious that they have a loving happy marriage whenever he is lucid.
  • Rome:
    • Jocasta's family are killed in a mass proscription set up by Antony and Octavian, leaving her with nothing. She is subsequently married off to Posca, a former slave of Julius Caesar. Posca's relationship with Caesar has left him wealthy and influential, but his ex-slave status (which causes him to still be looked down on in Roman society) and the fact that he is far older than her means Jocasta is scared and in tears at the thought of marrying him. Posca, however, proves to be a doting husband and Jocasta becomes very visibly fond of him.
    • Livia is overjoyed to be matched with Octavian, a member of the triumvirate that rules Rome. She's still pretty enthusiastic after he tells her that he'll occasionally beat her for sexual pleasure. When they first consummate their marriage, it's quite a mutual BDSM affair, and they're happily married from then on.
    • Lucius Vorenus and Niobe- though strained at first it grows into love
      Niobe: Love doesn't come unbidden. You must work for her. Strange marriage it would be if you loved each other from the start.
  • The Shannara Chronicles: Played with in season 2. Princess Lyria's mother suggests she marry King Ander in order to unite their kingdoms (and to give the queen the opportunity to take advantage of a civil war in Ander's kingdom to easily conquer it while being hailed as a savior). Both Lyria and Ander are in love with other people, but they decide to go through with it for the sake of their respective kingdoms. They become fast friends and close allies, working together to undermine Lyria's mother's ambitions. Ander dies saving Lyria before they can actually be married, so Lyria has to settle for a less iron-clad alliance between their kingdoms.
  • The White Queen: Invoked and then subverted with Richard of Gloucester and Anne Neville. They are clearly in deep Puppy Love at the beginning of the series, and Anne is giddy with delight when she thinks her father will arrange their betrothal. This falls through, though, and she has to marry Edward of Lancaster. By the time Richard and Anne do get engaged, they are independent adults who set it up themselves.

    Music 
  • Heather Dale's song "As I Am" is narrated by a man (presumably royal) who is hoping for one of these.
    I'm not looking for perfection, and I'm not offering a saint.
    I'm not looking for a pretty bird to put in some restraint.
    The only thing I want is that you love me if you can.
    And I only ask you take me, you take me as I am...

    Theater 
  • Arthur and Jenny in Camelot have never laid eyes on each other prior to their wedding day. Despite this, they take an instant liking to each other and have a very happy marriage — at least until Lance shows up.
  • In Cinna by Pierre Corneille, the emperor is stunned when he sees Émilie loves Cinna "already" because he arranged their marriage the same day. She clarifies they actually loved each other in secret for four years (not much of a coincidence, Cinna asked for the arranged marriage).
  • The fathers in The Fantasticks intend for their children to marry, so they fake a feud and forbid the boy and girl to speak to each other. It works... at least at first.
  • In The Game of Love and Chance (Le Jeu de l'amour et du hasard) by Marivaux, Silvia and Dorante are engaged without knowing each other. They disguise themselves as servants, meet and fall in love, without either one knowing that the other is their betrothed.
  • In Tom Robbins's Jitterbug Perfume, Kudra's first husband turns out to be more awesome than expected and then promptly dies.
  • In The Tempest, Prospero's plan is for Ferdinand (his rival's son) and Miranda to fall in love at first sight so that they'll marry and reconcile a dispute between their families. Which they do. He makes sure Ferdinand means it by pretending to oppose the match.

    Tabletop Games 
  • BattleTech had the marriage of Hanse Davion and Melissa Steiner. The marriage was due to a political arrangement between Hanse and Melissa's mother, Katrina Steiner, but the couple had extremely strong feelings for each other and succeeded in uniting their two realms into the greatest military and economic power in the Inner Sphere for four decades.
  • Caste Book: Dawn mentions a Solar who always assumed his Lunar mate married him because Deliberative society forced her to. He didn't realize the truth until the day of his death, when assassins bombed their house and she refused to run and save herself. Seconds after that, he sacrificed himself to give her a chance of escaping, so it's safe to say the feeling was mutual.
  • Given how common arranged marriages are in Legend of the Five Rings, it's natural that at least some of them would be happy. It's actually an Advantage you can take in-game, called "Blessed Betrothal." Besides giving you a spouse you actually like being around, it also gives certain social and economic benefits (since your spouse is more willing to draw on their family's influence to benefit you).
    Daidoji Kyobu: (to Rekai, his wife) I loved you from the moment of our betrothal. I feigned outrage so that you would not think less of me.
  • Warhammer: Vlad Von Carstein married his wife, Isabella, in order to gain control of her lands. To his surprise, he soon found himself genuinely falling for her - and to her surprise, the feeling was mutual. When Vlad was defeated and killed in battle, Isabella committed suicide. In-game, if both are on the table and one is killed, the other picks up Frenzy and Hatred (enemy army), as they fly into an insane fury and tear through the enemy in a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. They're also vampires, did we mention?

    Visual Novels 
  • In Long Live the Queen, crown princess Elodie is expected to marry and give birth to at least one heir for her throne and does so in most routes. A few of her marriage options can potentially lead to this, although for most of them it varies depending on your choices throughout the game.
    • Elodie's parents, Joslyn and Queen Fidelia, are implied to have been this. Joslyn really seems to get over Fidelia's death, flat-out tells Elodie no one will ever replace her mother, and only remarries if events of the game remind him that he needs an heir of his own, since Elodie already holds the throne and can't also inherit from him. In addition, if Elodie ends the game not yet engaged to anyone, it's stated that Elodie waited to marry because she wanted to find the same kind of love that her parents had.
  • The official object of the Summit in Seven Kingdoms: The Princess Problem is to achieve these between the delegates of the eponymous seven kingdoms, bringing them together for seven weeks to foster familiarity and determine which of them make compatible couples. The success rate is said to be quite high, although at least one background provides hints that this may not be as true as believed. You as the player character can end up in one yourself if you pursue a Matchmaker-approved relationship with someone you admit to having genuine feelings for.

    Web Animation 

    Webcomics 

    Web Original 
  • There is no GATE; we did not fight there: Kell and Adrianna, the parents of the main character, were betrothed from birth after their respective parents (and Kytheus' grandparents) secured an alliance of friendship after defeating a hive of monsters. They had a rough start but grew to love each other after Kell proved himself to her.
  • In the AlternateHistory.com timeline A More Personal Union, Elizabeth of England devised the marriage between Madeleine Stanley and Henri the Cyclops to strengthen Henri's claim to the English throne, nothing more. Henri and Madeleine are happy together anyway, probably thanks to them growing up together.
  • Mirarae's Royal Family has a few examples:
    • Araminta was betrothed to Han when she had a crush on Charles. Eventually however she fell in love with Han and has three children with him.
    • Henry IV and Alice were betrothed as children as they got on well. They ended up dating as teens and married as young adults.
    • Similar example to Henry IV and Alice with Naya and Phillip.

    Western Animation 
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
    • According to supplementary materials, Ozai and Ursa had this, though they grew distant later. Subverted in The Search, which reveals that Ursa pretended to love Ozai because the alternative would have endangered her original fiancĂ© and both of their families.
    • Played with interestingly: Pakku and Kanna were engaged when they were younger, but she apparently didn't love him and ran off to the South Pole, having a more or less happy family with somebody else and becoming Katara and Sokka's grandmother. (Meanwhile, Pakku became really embittered towards women as a whole and didn't get over it until meeting Katara.) They met decades later, and married in their senior years.
  • Subverted in the Bojack Horseman. Beatrice Horseman and Corbin Creamerman were paired off by their parents in their youth. As heirs to their respective companies, a marriage would join them in a strategically powerful conglomerate of Sugarman Cubes and Creamerman Ice Cream. Neither parents cared what their children thought but nevertheless the two grew to respect and like each other and their marriage would become this trope. However, Beatrice ends up knocked up by Butterscotch Horseman and the marriage is called off. To this day, Beatrice bitterly regrets her youthful mistakes.
  • Subverted in the Family Guy episode "Leggo My Meg-o": a parody of Taken, where Meg and a friend are abducted in Paris by human traffickers. As Brian and Stewie go about trying to find and rescue her in Paris, she is sold at an auction to a wealthy Arab sheikh. She ends up on his yacht, and it turns out the Sheikh's son wants to marry her and make her his princess, with full access to all the riches of his kingdom — and he's a nice guy, about Meg's age, and not bad looking — and if she turns him down, he'll be sad, but he'll fly her home on his private jet. Meg thinks her dreams have come true and wants to marry him — but just then Stewie bursts into the yacht's stateroom and shoots the prince dead.
  • The Simpsons had it happen with Apu. He spends the entirety of "The Two Nahasapeemapetilons" trying to get out of his arranged marriage, but when he meets the woman (Manjula) at the wedding he's instantly charmed. (And, she points out, if it doesn't work, they can always divorce.)
  • Winx Club had this, although Aisha's objection to being in an arranged marriage wasn't because she didn't like the guy (in fact, she didn't even know that he was her intended), but because she wanted to have the freedom to choose for herself. Once her parents stop making her be in an arranged marriage, it turns out the person she's been dating, Ophir, is actually the arranged marriage guy, Nabu. This relationship also didn't last: the writers did the unthinkable the following season. Nabu was Killed Off for Real! Poor Aisha.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Happily Arranged Marriage

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"Marry this rich stranger!"

Daland meets the Dutchman and immediately agrees to a marriage between him and Daland's daughter Senta. Unbeknownst to the men, Senta is already in love-before-first-sight with the Dutchman.

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