Don't focus on what someone didn't do! This is one of those all-too-human habits that can make you miserable, and psychologists would have a field day analyzing what it is about your childhood that makes you focus on when you don't get the nice comment or the favor from a parent. But we're going to forget about over-analyzing right now...because that's part of the problem!

If you're the type who analyzes everything, mixing that in with the bad habit of remembering disappointing interactions with people [and who doesn't have a bunch of those in their memory banks!?], planning in peace is never going to be your thing.

Take Sheila, for example. Sheila is a current bride-to-be who wrote me with one of the best questions ever: "I have so many friends and family members who are so excited about the wedding plans, they're offering to help, they're offering to let me borrow their veil or their aisle runner, one even offered her house as the location for the reception. But I'm thinking all the time about my one friend who hasn't returned my phone calls, hasn't had anything positive to say, and doesn't even seem to want to come to the wedding, let alone be a bridesmaid. I'm crushed and really unhappy...when I really shouldn't be. She's just one person, right? Why is this such a huge thing for me?"

My answer to Sheila: "It always hurts when a friend doesn't feel the same way about you as you do about them, when they don't treat you with the same value you treat them. Your friend isn't behaving the way you want her to, and that's hitting a huge nerve with you. Right now is not the time to 'fix' the relationship or try to 'fix' her. She's going to behave the way she behaves. Your most important job right now is to focus on all of the people who are treating you like gold and taking a huge interest in your wedding. Create a gratitude journal in which you record all of the great feedback you're getting from those people. Spend more time with those people. Call those people just to chat, laugh and have fun. NOT to talk about your cranky friend, who might be having a personal problem. You don't want to 'poison the well' of your friendship circle by getting all of your helpful friends to focus with you on the cranky friend. Just put that aside and allow yourself to revel in the circle of wonderful people you know."

I know it can be hard to do this, when you're truly hurt by the one person who's being a troublemaker. But it's up to YOU to choose your happiness over your hurt. So when thoughts of that cranky friend arise, grab your journal and read through all of the awesome things your friends have said to you or done with you. Choose your happiness by refusing to talk with others about that one troublemaker friend. Choose your happiness. It's as simple as that!

Here's an analogy: what if you invited a neighbor over to see your beautiful garden, with tons of lovely roses and a trellis, a new solar fountain, and lots of butterflies and birds fluttering around. It's gorgeous! But your neighbor just scowls and points out the one little weed that's poking up out of the mulch. Her inability to see beauty, and her magnetism towards the one flaw in that scene says a lot about her, right? She's someone who is Happiness-Resistant, and you'd think, 'wow, she has issues,' as she's going back home to make her family miserable. Now, if you do the same thing with your wedding, focusing on that one tiny weed in your 'garden', wouldn't that mean you're Happiness-Resistant?

So when someone zings you with an insult or a non-response, just think about that weed and reduce your disappointment to something you can pluck out and throw into a compost bin, not lay around and dwell on to the point where you hate your own garden! You're creating something beautiful. If someone else can't see that, they have some issues to work on.

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Your #1 Planning in Peace tool: a sense of humor. That means the ability to laugh at yourself, to share the lighter side of the planning sessions with your groom and not just a litany of complaints about what didn't go your way.

If you're like most brides, you're probably fidgeting in your seat right now, realizing that you've been terribly negative and whiny up to this point, and yes, you've been complaining about things going wrong, things not going your way.

Starting now, and for as long as you both shall live, make it a practice and a lifestyle to look on the brighter side of things, look for the funny story in it, even if it means telling your groom how the gown saleswoman told you that you looked like a big cotton ball in the wedding dress you tried on. Your groom loves it when you lighten up and laugh, so show him that side of yourself.

There's so much involved in wedding planning, but so much to laugh about too. Remember, this is supposed to be FUN!

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