Sheraton Cerritos Weddings and Special Events

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

I hope you will be able to spend a portion of the day with the ones you love or at least tell those important to you how much they mean to you today and every day.

Here's a photo below of me and my Valentine on our wedding day. I can't ask for a better one than my husband Curtis! We usually avoid Valentine's Day like the plague but since we really haven't had much free time alone with a baby at home, we are going to take advantage of the Grandparents babysitting and will be celebrating tonight at... The Olive Garden! (Hey, it's close by and who can resist their unlimited breadsticks?!)

Share with me how you spent your Valentine's Day!

Photo Courtesy of Skye Blu Photography  

(P.S. Please do not expect me to look like this in the office - I don't have a hair and makeup team on standby everyday! Haha!)

Hello everyone! Yazmin and I are proud to introduce another integral member of our team, Lisa Lifton, Sales and Catering Coordinator. Having worked the last two years in the hospitality industry and at the Sheraton Cerritos Hotel, Lisa has earned the respect of our entire Hotel staff as someone they can rely on to ensure all details of a Client’s big day go smoothly and as planned.   Lisa can handle anything that comes her way, whether it is for a wedding, corporate gala dinner, birthday party or overseeing a multi-million dollar real estate conference group. However, her heart does have a special fondness for weddings and social events and is our right hand gal to assist in the planning process and overseeing our events on the day of.

As a graduate of California State University, Fullerton, Lisa received her Bachelor of Arts in Communications.  Initially working in public relations and the entertainment industry, she decided to shift directions when she happened upon the opening at the Sheraton Cerritos by chance.  Not only does Lisa have a great work ethic, having been awarded Associate of the Month twice here at the Hotel, but she also is involved in the local community by becoming a Miss Cerritos Princess and establishing great contacts within the city.

In her free time, Lisa loves watching movies, trying new restaurants and of course, traveling, which is great when working in this industry as there are Starwood hotels all throughout the world!

Lisa is eager to see where her career in hospitality leads and knows that each day is a chance to learn something new and to become better at what she loves doing.  She truly enjoys working with people, and especially looks forward to being there on your event day to make sure that day is as special as the Client imagined!

Hi, I’m Yazmin Carreño, the Social Catering Manager at Sheraton Cerritos.

I was born and raised in Mexico City, until I was 15 years old... and I have been living in California since then, so I am definitely a Cali girl and yes I speak Spanglish.

So what’s a Social Catering Manager? People always ask me, do you cook? Pero la respuesta es siempre NO… but I finally got the right answer - my job is to book anything that has a dance floor (besides weddings… that’s Cathy)!

I started working in the hotel industry in 2001 and I can tell you that I don’t see myself doing anything else…Bueno despues de tratar el Front desk, Reservations, Food and Beverage, Revenue and Group sales… I finally found one of my biggest passions (besides shoes)… to help plan life’s most important events.

A quien no le gusta tener un evento... right? Quinceañeras, Sweet Sixteens, Debutantes, Class Reunions… o simplemente una fiesta.  Los eventos son parte of our lives and it is essential to enjoy them from the beginning. I enjoy creating an atmosphere in which people can have a good time without worries or distractions… Needless to say how fun they can be!

I have been quite lucky to work with some of the finest staff and learned under some outstanding management teams such as Holiday Inn, Furama Hotel and most recently the Four Points by Sheraton in Culver City. I believe that I have a wealth of experience and innovative ideas that I have collected during the last 11 years…  I look forward to sharing them with you!

Yazmin

Happy New Year and welcome to the brand new Sheraton Cerritos Weddings and Special Events Blog! I am so excited to be able to share with you the latest and greatest happening here at the Hotel in 2012 via this blog. You will be able to get to know us and learn why the Sheraton Cerritos is such a great venue to hold your own celebratory events.

To kick off my very first post, I thought I would start by introducing myself! As the Catering Manager specializing exclusively in weddings here at the Sheraton Cerritos, I have the pleasure of introducing our lovely property to prospective Brides and Grooms. Once the couple decides to hold their wedding with us, I then have the honor of assisting them throughout the planning process with finalizing the details of their wedding day. Finally, I oversee the wedding day itself along with our amazing Banquet and Kitchen team to ensure all that the carefully planned details come to fruition for the newlyweds!

A wedding is one of the most important days of a person's life, and I felt the same about mine when I was married back on June 2, 2007. However, I actually began my obsession with weddings over a decade ago when a dear friend asked me to assist with her wedding plans. At the time, I was in the entertainment industry as a Distribution Sales Manager for an independent movie production company. But once I entered the magical world of weddings, I changed careers and never looked back!

Prior to joining the Sheraton Cerritos, I was a Meetings and Special Events Manager with The Ritz-Carlton Huntington Hotel & Spa in Pasadena and transitioned to Catering Sales Manager after the property became The Langham, Huntington. During my tenure there, my focus was also on booking and servicing weddings, which routinely exceeded over 100 per year!  

I am a graduate of the University of California, Irvine with a BA in English.  I am also a native of Cerritos, so it's wonderful to be able to return home and work in the City I grew up in and raise my 8 month old baby boy. Besides my family and weddings, the other loves of my life are good food, bestselling novels, movies in general, traveling around the world and, I'm not embarrassed to admit it, reality TV!

Looking forward to sharing more in the coming year with you... Cathy