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Iwhere is the country weddings With an industry worth almost £100 billion and wealthy people spending millions to celebrate monogamy, a counter-trend is quietly taking hold: young urban Indians are paying to attend “weddings”, where neither couple is tying the knot and where the only promise is a night of music, dance and pageantry.
These fake wedding parties mimic a traditional Indian setting, resplendent with marigold garlands sarees And lehengasAnd Bollywood playlists – but without the rituals, family drama and financial burden. which began as a novelty in the capital Delhi spread rapidly earlier this year Bengaluru, Hyderabad And beyond that, it’s turning into one of the most talked-about social events of the year.
To understand the appeal, it helps to understand the scale of an Indian wedding. According to industry estimates, about 10 million weddings take place in the country annually and families often spend years saving for the occasion.
In 2024, investment advisory firm Wright Research valued the Indian wedding services sector at more than £75 billion, while market research and consulting company Grand View Research projected annual growth of more than 14 percent during the decade.
Indian weddings are very long, lasting between three and seven days, often involving hundreds if not thousands of guests.
Traditions vary in different regions and religions. can attend the function Kanyadaan, Which involves a father symbolically bidding farewell to his daughter; seven daysThe ritual of walking seven steps around the sacred fire to seal the union; TurmericA ritual of applying turmeric paste to the bride and groom as a cleansing and purifying blessing; And musicA music and dance festival is organized a day or two before the formal wedding to unite the families and remove any tension.
In Sikh weddings, couples walk around the sacred scripture during the ceremony, while for Muslims Nikah symbolizes the formal signing of the marriage contract.
However, along with such age-old customs, weddings have now become consumer spectacles, fueled by choreographed dance routines, theme-based decorations, delicious catering, and the presence of celebrities.
There was no more spectacular sight than this Marriage of Anant Ambani, son of India’s richest manLast year to Radhika Merchant. The festival began in March and ended in July, featuring rihanna, Celebrity artists include Katy Perry, Pitbull and Andrea Bocellidrawing Entertainment royalty and political figures as guestsand spread across multiple global locations,
The cost was reported to be in the hundreds of millions of dollarsWhich made it one of the most expensive weddings in history.
For most common Indians, weddings can never reach such extremes. But the Ambani marriage made clear how the institution embodied social status, cultural aspiration and financial performance. And yet, what people often remember most about weddings is something very simple – the dancing, the crowds, the collective joy of celebration.
In the shadow of such extravagance, fake weddings regain the pomp and show at minimal cost. With tickets priced anywhere between £4 and £60, you can get in on the fun without any of the responsibility.
Jumma Ki Raat, an event organizer in Delhi, was one of the first to launch the label of “fake music” in February. Co-founder Sahib Gujral says the idea started almost as a joke when he experimented with flower decorations that resembled a wedding stage.
“You dress up like you’re going to a wedding, dance to the songs, dress up like a wedding, that’s all,” he explains. Independent,
There are no showy rituals, no exchanging of vows or garlands – just the parts of the wedding that guests enjoy most.
At one of the fake weddings in the capital, guests joked about whether they belonged to the “bride’s side” or the groom’s, even though neither existed.
Strangers posed for photos family-style, others performed choreography, and by midnight the dance floor seemed less like satire and more like pure celebration.
These events are no longer an exclusive youth fad, bringing together a wide range of people.
Young professionals and students mingle with older attendees who missed celebrating their weddings during the pandemic. The 21-year-old man, who attended the Jummah night of mock music, says the atmosphere was more inclusive than a nightclub. He further said, “Normally I don’t go to a club alone, but here people don’t just stick to their groups, but try to include everyone.”
For Pooja, who was attending a two-day mock wedding in Delhi, the appeal was also practical. “I had an expensive lehenga from my cousin’s wedding lying in my wardrobe. If I wore it to a nightclub I would get stared at, but that’s actually the dress code here,” she says. Independent,
Some people see these events as an opportunity to live out their cinematic fantasies. 24 year old Karan, who is attending a fake wedding in Delhi with his girlfriend, tells Independent About growing up on a dose of Bollywood movies, in which weddings are often the ideal setting for the leads to express their love through song and dance.
He said, “You can’t sell me singing Shah Rukh Khan songs for Kajol at different weddings, and then expect me not to want that. When will I get a chance to dance to ‘Dilliwali Girlfriend’ with my girlfriend? Obviously only at this fake wedding ceremony because if I say I’m going to dance with her at cousin Neha’s wedding, my parents will disown me.”
This concept is also being adapted to create Space for marginalized communitiesHosted by curators Vaibhav Kumar Modi and Ashish Chopra in the southern cities of Bengaluru and Hyderabad Wedding MubarakA queer-focused mock marriage show.
Chopra, founder of queer events collective Beaunik, explains Independent He imagined this event as a glimpse of That marriage could not legally take place in India“It was nothing short of magic. People who missed it saw the pictures and begged us to do it again.”
Guests included drag queens, couples of all genders, and partners who engaged in traditional wedding games such as searching for rings in bowls of milk.
Modi, founder of cultural experience enterprise Dark Vibe Society, says symbolism is important. “We are Indians like everyone else and marriages are ours too,” he says.
His own mother, who had never been to a nightclub, arrived there and felt comfortable with the decor and music. “It didn’t feel like a show, it felt like we were home,” he recalls.
Fake marriages have so far faced little resistance in a country where breaking norms is often met with hostility. But the line between parody and offense remains thin. In the western state of Maharashtra, police earlier this year raided a “fake marriage party” where minors were found drinking, dozens were detained and the organizers charged under child protection laws.
Critics dismiss the trend of fake marriages driven by social media algorithms as a passing fad. Some organizers believe the novelty may wear off in major cities, but see potential for long-term success in smaller cities where such intense events are rare.
Weddings are universally understood IndiaModi says. “They are like salt, every Indian family knows them.”
They believe that the shared language makes them extremely adaptable.
It is already clear that fake weddings influence desire as well as dissatisfaction: a desire for spectacle, glamor and mass enjoyment and a dissatisfaction with the perception of weddings as burdensome, judgment-laden and excessive. They allow young Indians to embrace the energy of the country’s most enduring ritual without having to bear its costs or consequences.
Gujral believes that the success of such events is a response to the pressures and costs of actual weddings. “This is what the wedding industry is all about India He’s been selling it to us for decades, and I think weddings have become more about how much money is spent on it than about the ceremony itself,” he says.
“We decided to take advantage of that and turn it into a product you can sell.”
Currently, drums, marigold garlands and glittering sarees are attracting the crowd eager to experience the wedding without any pressure and worries.
In a place where weddings are a staggering financial showdown as well as a sacred duty, the chance to dance the night away under a canopy of fairy lights and rose petals with no obligations may be the most modern ritual in itself.