In India, as in many places, a wedding has always been equal parts religious ceremony, theatrical production and wealth demonstration project. For the country’s elite, the latest matrimonial trend is destination weddings in Bali or palaces in Rajasthan. For the new rich, hiring a helicopter is motivated by the same impulses for excitement and one-upmanship.

“Everyone wants to be better than the others,” said Subhash Goyal, whose travel company handles three or four helicopter weddings every year in the Delhi region. “This is how the new rich behave. They want to show off and say, ‘I have more money than you.’ ”

On the morning of his son’s wedding, Mr. Yadav sat in the shabby brick courtyard of his village home, finalizing the last details of a ceremony that seemed to straddle different centuries. He had earned about $109,000 selling three acres of his ancestral land. He banked some of the money, renovated his house, bought a small Hyundai and purchased three more acres farther out to continue farming.

He estimates that his share of the wedding — the bride’s father pays a bigger share — will cost him $13,000, including $8,327 for the chopper. “It is for my happiness, for the happiness of my son,” said Mr. Yadav, 36. “In my marriage, I went in a car. But that was a different era.”

Image Girls protected their faces from the dust near Delhi as a helicopter carried the groom to his bride’s village less than two miles away. Credit... Kuni Takahashi for The New York Times

As the family began the traditional procession through the village, his son, Kapil, 19, was dressed in embroidered finery atop a white horse. Mr. Yadav’s rented white Lexus finally got around the bullock cart; he was taking it to the bride’s village while his son rode in the chopper. As another touch, Mr. Yadav also had hired a truck — the Reenu Rock Star 2010 Hi-Fi DJ — to lead the procession. It was playing Hindi pop so loudly that the brick homes of the village seemed to shake.

Then a problem arose: The truck was stuck at a tight corner, and the procession was pinned between the truck and a herd of water buffaloes. As people slipped around the marooned Reenu Rock Star, another problem materialized: The helicopter was already circling above.