Shaadi without a couple? Welcome to Delhi’s fake wedding party scene

The next time a family member inquires about your wedding preparations because they’re eager to celebrate and dress up for the occasion, simply suggest they join a pretend wedding party.

Delhi’s trendy party atmosphere has a newcomer: faux wedding festivities. Visitors don their finest traditional attire, arrive at a location adorned like an actual wedding, and enjoy the evening dancing to dhol rhythms and celebratory music. A pair? Not required. These gatherings focus on the atmosphere, not the promises.

When Avantika Jain, a social media expert from Delhi, spotted an Instagram ad for a Fake Sangeet party, she felt compelled to share it with her friends. “During our college days, we often fantasized about hosting a wedding-themed celebration.” “This occasion seemed like the ideal opportunity to finally bring that to fruition — we all quickly agreed,” Jain informs India Today.

On April 25, she joined nearly a hundred other youths who hurried to Mehrauli Lane — a celebrated center of upscale eateries and clubs with views of the Qutub Minar — not for a typical Friday night celebration, but for a Fake Sangeet event at Zylo (a rooftop dining venue).

The dress code was firmly traditional.

Jain cautiously donned a black blouse matched with a plum-colored pleated lehenga, concerned it could be “too extravagant” for a South Delhi club on a Friday evening. However, she was in for a shock — nearly all the guests at the celebration were adorned in sparkling traditional attire, as if it were an actual Sangeet evening.

The location was adorned like a perfect wedding setting. Imagine lively yellow-magenta curtains, marigold embellishments, and unusual photo stations. Mehndi artists were available to adorn your hands with henna for an enhanced ‘wedding atmosphere’.

It’s also common for wedding dance choreography companies to stage mock weddings for content creation. Videos that look like real wedding moments are more likely to go viral than those shot in studios.

There have also been several instances of students studying abroad hosting pompous mock weddings as a means to socialize and celebrate their culture while being miles away from home. These celebrations feature lots and lots of dance, elaborate food spreads, traditional outfits, an at-home feel and perhaps some event management lessons as well.

But would you be willing to pay to attend a fake wedding?