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Fake resignation, ex's shaadi and fake birthday: Why Gen Z is celebrating imaginary milestones and how to join the party
Fake sangeets walked so Gen Z can now throw resignation nights and everybody’s birthdays! Here’s a look at the era of celebrating milestones that never happened
There was a time when a fake sangeet or shaadi party was novelty enough. Dress up in lehengas, dance to Bollywood, split into ladki wale and ladke wale, eat like you have survived three rounds of pheras and go home without anyone actually getting married. Gen Z, however, appears to have looked at that concept and decided it was nowhere near absurd enough.
The latest crop of themed events now includes a resignation party for corporate workers who desperately want to quit but still need their salary,, an ex ki shaadi for anyone who needs closure without waiting for an actual wedding invite, a birthday where everybody in the room is the birthday girl, and even a four-day destination wedding where there is no bride, no groom and, crucially, no relative asking when your turn is.
Fake resignation party
Quit your job... emotionally
If birthdays provide an excuse to celebrate yourself, Gurugram’s corporate crowd is being offered something perhaps even more cathartic: the opportunity to resign without actually resigning. MitraMesh founder Vasu Vashisht says the idea for a “resignation party”, scheduled for August 21, came while organising events around for the section he has dubbed “corporate mazdoors”.
“We try to build events around things people find relatable. We were sitting in Cyber Hub, which is such a corporate space, and realised how frustrated so many people are. Everyone has that thought, ‘Resignation de dunga’, but most people obviously can’t just do it,” he says. So the team created a night where employees can rage-quit emotionally and still log in the next morning.
The theme is ‘Corporate Jail’, complete with a “bitching wall” where guests can anonymously vent about things they cannot say aloud at work, a resignation box for writing imaginary resignation letters and a countdown-style activity celebrating their fictional escape from corporate life.
“It gives you the outlet of rage-quitting without actually doing it. It’s everything people imagine doing during their most hated corporate moments, but on a fake level,” he says.
The joke clearly struck a nerve. According to Vashisht, more than 300 tickets sold out within three days of the announcement, prompting plans to take the concept to Mumbai and Bengaluru next.
And if your frustration is less with your boss and more with your former lover, Jabalpur has an event for that too.
Fake ex ki shaadi
When your ‘ex’ gets married and you attend
On August 20, Hungama Entertainment is throwing an Ex Ki Shaadi party, with 500 people registering within days. Founder Sam Duggal says the idea was born, fittingly, out of an actual breakup within the team. He recalls, “Humari team mein kisi ka breakup hua, aur uski ex ki shaadi iss saal ho rahi hai. We were discussing how to help them move on, and suddenly realised that ex ki shaadi is the party we should throw.”
The result is being pitched as the “ultimate move-on night”. “The whole night is about closure. Iske baad aur kuch nahin hai, ab shaadi ho gayi hai, bas! Now you get on with your life,” Duggal says. Fake shaadis and fake sangeets have already happened. “But ex ki shaadi is an experience everyone should have,” he laughs.
There is something particularly Gen Z about turning emotional discomfort into a communal theme night. Breakups become content. Work frustration becomes décor. Ageing becomes an affirmation circle. Even the milestones people traditionally associate with permanence are being stripped of their stakes and retained purely for the fun parts.
Perhaps nowhere is that clearer than in Mesh Club’s upcoming fake destination wedding.
Fake birthday party
It’s all of our birthdays
In Delhi, Manisha Kalra of City Girls Delhi is turning one of the most individual celebrations of the year into a collective one with an “Everybody’s Birthday Party”.
The idea, she says, came from something personal: “For most of my growing-up years, I didn’t get the kind of birthday party I wanted. It came from that desire to have the curated birthday party of my dreams.”
Except this time, nobody has to wait for their actual birthday. Kalra explains, “The birthday could have passed or could be coming up months later. It’s about taking a moment to celebrate the year that has been.” Guests will share one thing they are proud of achieving over the past year, while the rest of the room cheers them on. There will be games, whimsical, Instagram-friendly décor and early-2000s music to recreate the nostalgia of childhood birthday parties.
The event is exclusively for women, in keeping with the community’s girlies supporting girlies philosophy. But Kalra is quick to clarify that calling it a “fake birthday party” did not quite capture the idea.
“At birthday parties, all the attention is usually on one person. Here, we want everyone to feel like it is their birthday. We are all the stars for those four or five hours,” she says, adding, “Every day we are getting older, but on a regular birthday you may not actually stop and introspect about the year you have lived. Here, you’re surrounded by a room full of women celebrating themselves with you.”
Fake destination wedding
Taking the fake wedding on vacation
From September 4 to 8, a group of 18 to 25-year-olds will travel from Delhi to Shimla for what founder Ryan Shah describes as “a proper shaadi, without the baggage”.
There will be haldi games, themed sangeet performances, a reception party and participants split into ladki wale and ladke wale. There just won’t be anyone getting married.
“It’s like experiencing a ghar ki shaadi without all the ghar ke kaam. No chachu coming into your group and telling his stories, no bua being upset, no maasi counting your drinks and no tauji jinke 50 kaam karne ho,” Shah quips.
And unlike an ordinary themed party in the city, this one adds an actual holiday to the fantasy wedding. Guests will head into local markets, visit tourist spots and complete activities across Shimla. “A fake shaadi is not new, but a fake destination wedding is. Aap ghoomoge bhi It’s a combination of travel and partying,” he explains.
Entry, however, is not as simple as buying a ticket. Interested participants must fill out a form and then go through what the organisers openly call a “vibe check”.
“We speak to them and see whether they will mesh well with the group. The trip needs to be a safe space, so that’s crucial You need to qualify,” he says, adding that the age limit is deliberately narrow. Nobody above 25 is allowed, while the minimum age is 18.
Not only in India….
Desi shaadi in videshi setting
The faux-wedding phenomenon has travelled much farther than Shimla. In Sydney, 23-year-old Soham Ritesh Gupta is planning his own fake Indian wedding in October, aimed particularly at students and young Indians living away from home.
Gupta says the idea emerged from the community events he was already organising in a city with a large population of Indian and Asian students.
“When you’re here, you can’t attend a lot of weddings back home, and you do get homesick. Apart from Diwali, you don’t get many occasions to wear traditional outfits and really be yourself at an event. So it’s about embracing the community and creating that feeling of a get-together.”
The fake wedding, then, is not entirely fake in what it delivers. The bride and groom may be imaginary, but the dressing up, dancing, food, friendships and sense of belonging are real. And perhaps that explains why these parties are multiplying.
Why is Gen Z faking it? Psychologist decodes
Traditional celebrations often arrive with built-in obligations. A birthday requires hosting. A wedding comes with families, rituals and expectations. Quitting a job comes with rent to pay. An ex actually getting married may be less celebratory than the DJ would suggest. Experts say that the fake version keeps the emotional payoff while deleting the consequences. “Psychologically, it points to two things at once: a generation that has become skilled at manufacturing its own emotional experiences rather than waiting for life to hand them out, and also a subtle discomfort with actually sitting through real endings and real vulnerability,” says Dr Deepika Sharma, consultant clinical psychologist, Asian Hospital.
She explains, “The fake shaadi trend makes complete sense when you look at what a wedding actually offers people emotionally - the dressing up, the dancing, the collective euphoria, the sense of being part of something larger than your everyday life. What it does not require, in this version, is the years of relationship labour, the family negotiations, or the actual commitment. People are essentially reverse-engineering the emotional high of a milestone event while opting out of the milestone itself. It is not deception, it is efficient joy-seeking. And it does not stop at weddings. We are seeing the same logic show up as fake breakup parties, fake farewells, fake birthdays on days that are not actually your birthday. Each one borrows the ritual container of a genuine life transition -- grief, closure, new beginnings -- without the transition having actually happened. A breakup party without an actual breakup lets you access the catharsis, the sympathy, the ‘main character’ moment, minus the heartbreak. A fake farewell lets you feel the drama of moving on without the risk of unemployment.”
After all, if the outfit is real, the playlist is real, the pictures are real and the hangover tomorrow morning is very real, who exactly needs the occasion?
However, she warns: “Celebrated occasionally, it is playful and even resourceful. Leaned on too often, it risks becoming a way of feeling everything intensely while committing to nothing - joy and grief both turned into content, rather than lived through.”
Beyond fake shaadis: Where to attend the fake milestone parties
Everybody’s Birthday Party
When: September 19
Where: Kunzum GK
Register: @citygirls.in (women only)
Fake Divorce
When: August 23
Where: Eros Hotels, Nehru Place
Register: @mhouz_official
Fake Destination Wedding
When: September 4 to 6
Where: Delhi to Shimla
Register: @themeshclub
For more, follow @htcity and @htcity.delhijunction
