Diva Retreat 2016 in San Diego, California

Re-live Our Diva Retreat 2016 in Sunny San Diego, California

This August, we were able to hold our Diva Retreat 2016! As part of the Diva family, it is a huge highlight of our summer! As Divas, we wear a LOT of different hats. In addition to being THE Dating Divas and wives, many of us are also mothers, sisters, members of the community, church members, daughters, business women, and a myriad of other roles we balance! We pretty much know how to ROCK being busy women! But even Divas need a liiiittle vacation, amiright? AND the best kind of Diva vacation is when we all get to party together (and boy do Dating Divas know how to par-tay!). This year we held our annual Diva Retreat {AKA Diva Party} in sunny San Diego, California!

When The Dating Divas started, it was a small group of friends who lived close to each other. But now, with more than 30 fabulous women on the team, spread across the country, it is more important than ever for us to meet up to connect with one another face to face. Being new to the team, I couldn’t wait to meet all of my virtual best friends in person! This year we had 20 Divas (and 2 adorable “mini divas” aka babies. ha!) attend the retreat! And let me just say that getting 20 energetic passionate women together is the perfect recipe for a weekend of laughter, fun, and PURE entertainment!

Tara (our Founder), Chrissy (our Site Director), and both of us (Melissa and Alise) all set out to San Diego one day early to get our retreat location ready for the rest of the Divas! We were so excited when we drove up to what would be our home for the next few days and realized it had breathtaking ocean views RIGHT from the front window! This house was the ideal place for our Diva Retreat 2016 because it came with a huge living space and gorgeous kitchen! Plus, every Diva was able to sit around in their own comfortable chair in the same great room. On top of the large living spaces, there were plenty of bedrooms and bathrooms to accommodate our large group! We knew we would make some memories out in the backyard by the pool {AKA hot tubbing every single night? You betcha!} and on the front deck overlooking the Sunset Cliffs of San Diego. Mmmmmmm, we’re already wanting to go back!!

Before the Divas arrived we began prepping a few surprises! The Diva Retreat just isn’t complete without a few surprises up our sleeves! One of them being what we like to call our, SWAG BAG! You can read all about the fun goodies we put inside! We then took a trip to the grocery store to buy JUST about a million groceries. Obviously, snacks and delicious foods are a MUST for keeping 20 women happy {or at least THIS woman happy!}!

As the Divas arrived, they were welcomed with fresh snacks and classy mocktails! We sent them off, with a scavenger hunt in hand, to find their rooms and to chat with each other, and for some of them it was the first time they had met anyone in person! By the time everyone arrived we all migrated to the backyard near the pool area. This area was THE perfect setting to begin our weekend! With the hot tub and pool close by we all gathered together to finally introduce ourselves! Even though we work with each other every day, a few of us hadn’t ever met each other in person! It’s kind of like reading a book and falling in love with a character and then getting to watch the character in a movie and getting to fall in love with them alllllll over again. Yep! That’s just how much we LOVE our diva-sisters! There was magic in finally getting to connect with each other face to face. While gathered around we played a few games to get to know each other, like “Never have I ever…” and we learned A LOT of things, like which Divas had been skinny dipping {Ha! Don’t worry, we won’t tell!}

We relaxed, talked, and laughed until we had worked up QUITE the appetite. After a yummy dinner, we had our annual Diva Retreat tradition, the Favorite Things Party! Each year, we hold a Favorite Things Party, but the basic idea is that each person brings 3 exact copies of something that is their favorite thing! This year we decided to “Divafy” the traditional party by bringing our favorite things that we enjoy with our husbands. We all brought 3 of our favorite things to give away to one another and left with 3 new things to enjoy with our spouse! You can check out a few of our favorite things from the Facebook Live that we filmed during our retreat. We all came away like bandits! For example; Alise received a spicy game just for the bedroom {wink!}, a fabulous book to read, and some goodies to cook up in the kitchen. Let’s just say her hubby was happy to see her when she returned home! HA! We finished off the night roasting marshmallows on the front deck, exchanging beauty secrets, and basically laughing until we were too tired to stand up!

We woke up the next day energized for another busy day! Each year during our retreat, we carve out precious time to learn about making our business better. We learn from our fearless leaders (Tara, Chrissy, and Jen) and then brainstorm and work together on ways to improve our business! There was a lot of energy in the room and we came up with some amazing ideas that we can’t wait to share with all of you!

Our team is ambitious, caring, hilarious, kind, passionate, talented, and absolutely inspiring. It truly is an HONOR to be in the business of strengthening marriages and we are all so thankful that we are on this journey together!

After our training, we hit up the beautiful city of San Diego for some fun in the sun! We broke into groups, exploring different areas around town. A few Divas headed to the beach, others stayed at the house and took a dip in the pool, and some enjoyed paddle-boarding in the bay. There was no shortage of fun OR sun and I think we all fell in love with San Diego!

We met back up again for a delicious dinner all together. The always adorable, Diva Megan, hosted our first ever Diva Retreat Facebook Live. Each Diva was able to introduce herself to our amazing readers (that’s you!) AND a few of our Divas shared their favorite things from the night before!

After connecting with our readers, we connected with the Divas that couldn’t make it out to our retreat. We met up virtually to award each Diva with a special award personalized to what makes each Diva special in all of our eyes! Tara, our founder was given the award, “Mamma Bear Extraordinaire” because she is PRETTY much our mamma bear and does an extraordinary job at leading the charge! We concluded our meeting with a fun raffle drawing where we had AMAZING sponsors provide us with incredible prizes!! (We have to admit, we all pretty much wanted to win EVERYTHING). You can check out all these items and start making your own wish list!

We had a few surprises that finished off our night with a bang! Our entire team of Divas surprised Tara, Chrissy, Nichelle, Alise and Melissa (those who had planned the retreat) with a full on choreographed FLASH MOB. Yep! You read that right! We were stunned and had no idea how they pulled it off so secretly {they are SO sneaky, you guys!}! On top of that, we were surprised with thoughtful notes from each Diva and were gifted the softest blankets you have ever felt! It was SERIOUSLY a night to remember!

The next morning was our last moment together {sniff, sniff}. We met for one last hurrah as Tara and Chrissy shared some inspiration for all of us. They reminded us of why we are all here, to help strengthen our own marriages and the marriages of others. We are all truly passionate about this cause and we take the challenge with heart and soul. To remind us of our impact, we were all gifted a beautiful necklace to help us remember to “inspire” those around us.

Empowering each other is SO, SO important for our business and actually part of our core values at The Dating Divas. In fact, our goal to empower marriages and individuals alike is evident in the AH-mazing Reclaim Your Marriage program we created. We help you tackle 10 hot button issues most marriages face or will face in the future. Because we know how important valuing yourself is to the success of your life and marriage, we focus on self-esteem for an entire week. Our Diva Retreat 2016 was all about practicing what we preach and building each other up! We can personally attest to the fact that when you are surrounded by such an amazing group of ladies it definitely lifts you up!

It is our hope that EVERY one of our readers benefits from the inspiration we get from our annual retreat and that they too can create experiences like this in their own life, whether it be with a group of girlfriends, co-workers, or even family!