In one hard-pressed Cairo neighborhood, wedding planners say couples have cut back on events that may have cost $300 before the revolution because they can now pay only about $100. Jewelry stores say the average amount that grooms spend on the traditional gifts of gold for their brides has fallen sharply, and disc jockeys say they now perform at just 2 or 3 weddings a month, down from an average of 10 before the revolution.

“Nobody is getting married after the revolution,” said Amr el-Khodary, 37, who was forced to close his shop that rents cars for wedding parades.

Ibrahim Mohamed, a 26-year-old cab driver with a college degree, is a case in point. A steep decline in fares, he said, has prevented him from saving up the roughly $7,000 for an apartment, furniture, a small wedding and the customary gift of jewelry that he says he needs to marry.

“If it weren’t for the revolution,” he said, “I would have been able to get married.”

The reasons for his plight have been piling up all year: a virtual cutoff of foreign investment, a 30 percent decline in tourist visits and the stagnation of economic growth. The official unemployment rate is 12 percent, but among young people the real rate of unemployment is at least double that figure.

The military rulers have also presided over a period of financial turmoil. Inflation has surged into double digits, and the exchange rate for the currency, the Egyptian pound, is under heavy pressure. Foreign exchange reserves have plunged, as the government is spending about $2 billion a month in a losing battle to prop up the pound. Foreign currency reserves have fallen to about $10 billion, after certain obligations, from about $36 billion before the revolt.

Economists say Egypt’s military rulers contributed to the strain by shunning the planned loan from the I.M.F. last June, when it could have provided badly needed hard currency and a financial seal of approval that might have helped reassure foreign investors and aid donors.