It was only a small wedding, but even those take a lot of planning and Giles Dilnot had not factored in Covid-19.

With the prospect that a bridesmaid might not be able to fly in from Norway, and the health risk to some elderly guests, Dilnot and his fiancee decided to postpone a wedding just before Easter that they had spent months organising.

“There comes a point when what you want to happen just has a high potential to be overtaken by what is predicted to happen,” said Dilnot, who works for the children’s commissioner. “Suddenly your head starts telling your heart to be a responsible adult and make a call. Not an easy one, but there’s the prospect of doing it later this year and we’re holding on to that.”

Thousands of people face a similar dilemma in the next few weeks, when wedding season gets under way, schools break up and holidays are meant to begin. The uncertainty accompanying the coronavirus outbreak means events even a month away seem impossible to plan for. So some people are looking at their diaries – and effectively cancelling Easter.

Bernadette Chapman, head of the UK Alliance of Wedding Planners, said her members had been cancelling weddings planned for this month and next. “It’s weddings with a high percentage of international guests,” she said. “You would have ended up with a wedding with a quarter of the guests turning up, so the couples have decided to postpone.”

The impact on wedding planners, photographers, musicians, cake designers – most of whom are self-employed – could be severe, she said. Most planners have the capacity for about 10 weddings a year. “Weddings that are postponed are fine, but our members then can’t fill days this year, and they would have sold next year’s dates anyway.” Some could lose “almost a season” of their income, Chapman said.

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Easter looks even worse for travel and tourism. Joss Croft, chief executive of UKinbound, said businesses relying on staycationers or overseas tourists coming to the UK “may only have a few weeks left to survive”.

“Many of our members are reporting minimal bookings for the normally busy spring, including Easter, and summer months,” Croft said. A survey two weeks ago revealed that 70% of UK inbound businesses had lost revenue and 20% had lost a third of their income. “The situation is moving very fast, so we know this figure will have increased substantially by now,” Croft said, calling on the government to act swiftly.

In theory, many travel bans should be over by Easter. Italy’s borders are scheduled to reopen on 3 April. The Premier League and Champions League will be under way again. India will start issuing visas again and Europeans will be able to resume flights to the US.

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Yet with events after Easter also being postponed, such as the London Marathon and the local and mayoral elections in May, no one feels confident enough to book holidays. Tour operators are seeing a “huge decline in new bookings over the past couple of weeks”, according to David Hope of GfK, which monitors package holiday sales.

By Friday afternoon most attractions in the UK were following government guidance to stay open, with hundreds of Easter egg hunts planned. The National Trust is pressing ahead with Cadbury egg hunts at its heritage landmarks and Historic Royal Palaces still hopes families will come to Hampton Court and Kensington Palace to find Lindt bunnies.

A few organisations, such as GoFest, which organises Easter active children’s camps, have warned that if the government decides to ban small gatherings then they may be forced to cancel. Eventbrite was showing nearly 2,000 Easter activities available across the UK on Friday, and so far only a handful of organisers have postponed events in April.

The Church of England is still keen to celebrate Easter and will be issuing guidance “in due course” but it has already warned clergy not to wash people’s feet, a ritual often performed on Maundy Thursday, or allow people to kiss the cross as part of Good Friday rituals performed in some churches.

Hilary Trahair, events manager at the Association for Project Management, said there were ways for people to plan ahead, in spite of the uncertainty.

“People should look ahead and think about different scenarios,” she said. “What impact could they have and how likely are they to happen.” The next step is to look at the risks – such as risks to health or finance. “And then work out, based on the impacts that would have, what would your decision be?

“So when you get to the crunch point, you’ve already made the decision – you really don’t have to think about it. And you can focus on putting your action plan in place.”