Talk directly to them. Don't put your groom in the middle to talk to his mom, or ask one bridesmaid to speak to another bridesmaid about her attitude and what you're assuming it means. When you play the childhood game of telephone, so much gets lost in translation. E-mailing gets things lost in translation!! So face down your fear of confrontation, put away those assumptions you have about why that person said what she did, or did what he did, and just ask what's up. Make it an in-person chat so that you can read the 80% of communication that's non-verbal, such as body language or a facial expression. If you're too far away to meet for coffee, the next best thing is a phone call.

Bridesmaids and moms say they're often stunned when they find out the bride was upset about something they said, and that the bride has been stewing over it (and talking to others about it) for weeks. If not months. Then they get offended that the bride didn't talk to them first. No matter how old you are, it's easy to fall into the assumption and misunderstanding hole and make all kinds of mistakes when you're too stressed and hectic to think clearly.

So make the call or set up the meeting in order to communicate clearly and directly while the issue is still small enough to solve and let go...returning you all to Planning in Peace!

Get even more ideas to avoid wedding mistakes here!

Ask your wedding vendors for printed, itemized lists of what you've ordered and when each element of your wedding day will roll out -- which is the new, more detailed method of calling each vendor to confirm that they're going to be there on time....a Must-Do we've always had slated for a few days before the wedding.

Now, to prevent any miscommunications that might have happened when you placed your order, when overseas shippers sent your flowers, when the caterer's team made your cake, and so on, the new methodology is to ask for the detailed order sheet to be scanned and e-mailed to you a week before the wedding [e-mail is usually more reliable than fax and keeps you more organized when you have a file to look back at.] 2 weeks prior is also great, giving vendors more time to order something that you've discovered isn't on your order list.

Don't freak out if there's a miscommunication about an order when it's something decor-related, and not an ultra-essential like your gown or the ring. Just keep your focus on the goal of fixing the problem with the wedding vendors so that you get to the point of saving your big day, rather than burning off ugly steam with being angry at whichever staff member didn;t write down your latest instructions.

For more solutions to people-problems, get the book here!

A quite bridesmaid doesn't always mean a jealous bridesmaid. This one really depends on your own personal level of self-confidence and how quickly you jump to negative conclusions [sorry, but that's the naked truth.]

If a friend takes three days to call you back, have you always assumed she was mad at you, and called again a few times to make sure everything was okay?

Is it your nature to worry about who's mad at you, or who you may be letting down by being distracted with your wedding?

We could label these habits all day, but what goes would over-analyzing do? The goal here is to keep you from causing ugly conflicts by making ugly assumptions, and misunderstanding a bridesmaid's lapse in getting back to you.

Sometimes, e-mail and cell phone carriers drop messages. Sometimes we flag important messages and the In Box just gets too loaded down. Sometimes we have notes on the bathroom mirror that flutter off when the shower steam gets the room too tropical.

Instead of driving yourself nuts about why bridesmaids aren't calling back on the same day, cut them a bit of a bigger break even though you're the bride under tremendous pressure. Give them deadlines of when you need to hear back from them, and it *is* okay to send a reminder e-mail about the task you need to get completed, not about whether or not she's mad at you! We're all blind to how often we can act like insecure 6th-graders, but now is not the time. Your bridesmaids love you; they're just busy with their own packed lives right now and will get back to you sometime after the beep!

For more solutions to other-people problems, get the book here!

If a parent or friend warns you against over-spending on the wedding, it doesn't automatically mean she thinks you're over-spending on your wedding, which your stressed-out mind might read as 'why are you trying to keep my wedding day small and unimpressive? Don't you think I deserve a gorgeous wedding day?' That's one of the biggest mistakes brides make -- taking things personally -- and nothing good ever comes from that.

Here's why people make a big deal over what things cost with weddings these days: it's everywhere on TV!! Never before have we seen so many wedding-themed TV shows and segments on The Today Show and Good Morning America, where viewers are voting online between the $5,000 wedding dress and the $7,500 wedding dress. Your mom has probably been shocked beyond all belief at how much wedding items cost, simply because she sees big numbers everywhere she looks! $3,000 on Cake Boss for a wedding cake? $9,000 on Say Yes to the Dress? Not to mention all of their friends talking about how much weddings costs these days, and how ridiculous it is to spend that kind of money on one day.

Don't take these questions to heart, and don't latch onto some imaginary idea that you don't deserve the wedding of your dreams. Everyone just has money on their minds right now. It's not personal.

Get the book here!

It's so easy to misunderstand something that someone says, especially when you're tired and overwhelmed like most brides are while planning their weddings. A great many conflicts are borne out of a blowing-out-of-proportion of something that someone says. Now, granted, there are people out there who get a kick out of making you lose your cool, but we're not talking about them right now. We're talking in this series about the innocent things that happen during the planning season that -- if you're not careful -- can cause rifts and blowups and bridesmaid firings, mom conflicts and all other manner of everything that's not Planning in Peace. So let's start the series with one of the major situations I'm sure you'll ID with right away: the friend who is always telling you what she did for her wedding.

"We had gold and yellow with our persimmon centerpieces, which looked so amazingly fall-like!" Aaaaand, you want to kill her. After a few of these interjections, you might start having Ally McBeal-type fantasies of smashing a pie in her face and screaming, "I don't care what colors you used, this is MY wedding!"

But here's the thing...she's not telling you to use gold and yellow flowers with your persimmon color scheme. She's not saying her plan is better than yours. That's probably what you heard, since you're rightfully sensitive to people telling you how to do each and every one of your plans. But it's not the case. She's just connecting with you. It's like an impulse, a residual excitement for you that lets her revisit her time of being the bride, and if you get any inspiration from her idea to mix in some gold, then she feels like she's being an amazing friend! There's no implied order-giving here, so don't jump to the wrong conclusion and make an ugly misunderstanding that's just going to get you labeled as a stressed-out bride.

Just say thanks, and tell her how beautiful her day was. Even for years afterward, it's nice to hear. :]

Get the book here!

Here's a little trick for handling all of the moody people around you....take yourself out of it! If your groom comes home all cranky or quiet, DON'T assume he's mad at you (which can cause you to over-compensate and bug the life out of him when you're tapdancing to bring back his smile). If your bridesmaids are taking a long time to get back to you about their shoe dye order, don't assume they're jealous or not interested in your wedding plans.

You're going to be dealing closely with a lot of people, and they're all going through many different things in their own lives. Sometimes, they just get snappy. Or quiet. Or weepy. The mistake comes when we think, "What did *I* do?" or jump to the assumption that it must have something to do with the wedding plans.

If that immediate thought arises, let it float away and consider that they're just having a bad day. Here are some of the REAL reasons that some real-life brides found out their Inner Circle was snappy or silent:
* They got in trouble at work, and they're worried about getting fired.
* Their period is late, and they're in a pregnancy scare
* They're having money problems
* Their relationship is failing
* They have Seasonal Affective Disorder
* A parent is very sick, and the parent doesn't want it announced to the family due to the impending wedding
* They're overwhelmed with a massive To-Do list
* The job search isn't going well, and they're depressed
* They just need a half hour of quiet when they come home from work [this is the #1 request of both brides and grooms who need decompression time after a long day.]

So, you see, it's not all about you. And when you assume it is, you create a PROBLEM that IS all about you. Take yourself out of it. You'll be glad you did. Silence and snarkiness disappear much faster when you do!