This is so strange to me. I hear stories like this all the time but I have hard time understanding who would not show up or not eat the food that was obviously for the party.

Did they know there would be food beforehand? Could they have eaten before because they thought there wouldn’t be anything at the party? What about the other 2 people? Did they tell you they were not coming or did they say they were coming and then just didn’t show up? Did they say why they didn’t show up?