How many wedding no-shows?

We haven't had our wedding but, if anyone says they're coming and they don't our venue has their own policy for extra food. They employ a lot of college students as workers for set up/food servers. We were told that any extra food from our buffet would go to the workers! I'm glad cause I remember in college loving free food especially after working.

From weddings I have attended as a guest, the couple/parents mentioned they had 99-100% attendance in most cases. Only a couple have had mostly no shows and that was due to sending digital invites instead of paper which no one too seriously. In nearly every case where there was food (most were cake and punch only) the leftovers were sent home with local guests..since it was bulk restaurant catering. Leftover cake was also sent with local guests.

We had an afternoon tea, which was accomplished with trays of sandwiches, scones, cakes, etc, on each table. We had 3 no-shows and 3 people show up without rspv-ing. Get this--the venue didn't care about the 3 no-shows AND charged us for 3 extra guests. And they told me during the reception! I could use lots of bad words here, but I'll leave it to you to work out what they are.

We had 74 RSVP and 17 no shows..UGGG.. Unfortunately do to the rules at venues you can't take food home with you, so I told my guest in so many words we have plenty of food for seconds, Eat Up..LOL!! I am sure we had lots of leftover food, not sure what the venue does with it, kinda sucks..That was pretty much over 300 dollars we just threw away do to the noshows..

The audacity If you don't mind me asking, do you know what the cause of this was? Because every once in a while I hear about these stories and every time I'm mind baffled.

Was there a covid outbreak in the area or is it a cultural thing where people aren't expected to show up? I'm from the greater NYC area where most decent venues are easily 160 pp and up, so that would easily be $3,000 wasted. So incredibly rude to RSVP and not show up (unless there's an emergency or sickness of course)