Sheraton Universal
A 21-story tower above Universal City, where the top-floor Starview Room puts the Hollywood Hills and the whole San Fernando Valley behind your first dance.
The view is the whole point
The Sheraton Universal sits on the hill beside Universal Studios, and its wedding rooms are the reason to look past the fact that it is a large convention hotel. The Starview Room runs to 5,607 square feet on the top floor, wrapped in glass, and it is genuinely difficult to find another Los Angeles ballroom that gives you the Hollywood Hills on one side and the Valley on the other from inside the reception. Downstairs the Grand Ballroom is more than 10,000 square feet and takes over a thousand people, so a large South Asian or multi-generational celebration fits here without splitting into two rooms.
We have photographed weddings here since 2022
Our first wedding at the Sheraton Universal was in the spring of 2022, and the most recent was in the autumn of 2025 — a terrace ceremony in the late afternoon, then the reception upstairs in the Starview Room, with a three-person team on seven hours of coverage. That is a useful shape to know about this venue: the ceremony happens outside at ground level, and then everybody rides up to the top floor for dinner. The lift ride between the two is where the day quietly loses ten minutes, so we build it into the timeline rather than discovering it on the day.
Good to know before you book
- Weddings run in one of two blocks: noon to 4pm, or 6:30pm to 12:30am. Pick the evening block if you want the Starview windows at dusk.
- Catering and bar are in-house only.
- The ceremony fee is quoted around 1,200 dollars, with meals from roughly 54 dollars a head at lunch and 62 at dinner, plus a 22 percent service charge.
- Directories put receptions from about 15,000 dollars, with couples typically spending nearer 18,000.
- It is a working hotel with real security. Expect to file a certificate of insurance and check your vendors in properly — we have done it here, it is straightforward, but it is not something to leave to the morning of.
- 961 guest rooms on site, valet parking, and a shuttle to CityWalk, which makes it unusually easy on out-of-town guests.
- Bridal suite and getting-ready rooms are available.
- Wheelchair accessible throughout.
Where we like to shoot
- The Starview Room itself, late in the evening block, when the room lights come down and the Valley comes up behind the glass.
- The terrace and the Ballroom Garden for the ceremony and the wide family frames.
- The Terrace Room and its terracotta patio by the pool, which is the softest light on the property in the afternoon.
- The staircases and the lobby, which give a clean architectural frame when the ballrooms are still being set.
- Outside on the hill for a few minutes at golden hour, with Universal City below.
Three rooms worth knowing about
Top floor, 5,607 square feet, glass on every side. Quoted at 300 seated for a ceremony and around 400 in total. This is the room couples book the hotel for, and the one reviewers single out for the Hollywood Hills and skyline views.
10,273 square feet downstairs, rated to 1,200. Windowless by nature, so it lives on lighting rather than view — but it is one of the few LA hotel rooms that can seat a very large celebration in one space.
The Ballroom Garden takes up to 500 seated, and the Terrace Room opens onto a terracotta patio by the pool. Reviewers are frank that the outdoor ceremony space is the weaker part of the property and benefits from real florals — worth knowing before you commit to an outdoor ceremony here.
Planning your day at Sheraton Universal
Build your Sheraton Universal timeline
Move the slider to the hours of coverage you are considering, then pick the size of the day and where the ceremony is. The timeline below rebuilds itself as you change any of them.
The whole wedding at Sheraton Universal
- 2:10 PMArrival, the venue and the details
- 2:40 PMFirst look and couple portraits before guests arrive
- 3:30 PMTucked away while guests arrive. Ceremony space and details photographed
- 4:00 PMCeremony
- 4:30 PMFamily formals
- 5:05 PMCouple portraits: the Starview Room itself, the terrace and the Ballroom Garden and the Terrace Room and its terracotta patio by the pool
- 5:50 PMCocktail hour, guests and candids
- 6:40 PMGrand entrance, dinner and toasts
- 7:55 PMGolden hour, then the evening light
Ceremony set at 4:00pm as a starting point. Tell us your ceremony time and we rebuild the day around it.