October 18, 2025 will forever smell of crushed tempranillo leaves and candle wax to Stella del Carmen Banderas Griffith. The 29-year-old daughter of Antonio Banderas and Melanie Griffith exchanged vows with filmmaker Alex Gruszynski beneath the stone arches of Abadía Retuerta, a 12th-century abbey turned wine estate outside Valladolid, Spain. Rows of late-harvest vines glowed amber in the sunset while a string quartet played Granados—an Andalusian lullaby chosen because, as Stella told guests, “I wanted to walk toward Alex on the same earth where Dad taught me to ride a bike.”
The aisle was a simple runner of ivory linen; the abbey’s crumbling cloister had been dressed only with hurricane lanterns and garlands of dried lavender from the abbey’s own fields. Stella appeared in an off-the-shoulder lace gown by Spanish designer Isabel Sanchís, its train embroidered with tiny olive branches—an homage to her father’s Málaga roots. A fingertip veil held by a single pearl comb fluttered as she moved; in her bouquet: white roses from her grandmother Tippi Hedren’s garden and a single blush peony for Alex, who once drew peonies for her in the margins of their high-school notebooks. Alex waited at the altar in a classic black tuxedo with silk peak lapels, eyes glassy before the music even began.
Antonio, misty-eyed and visibly swallowing tears, escorted his daughter the final steps. In Spanish he whispered, “Siempre eres mi estrella,” then lifted her veil and placed her hand in Alex’s. Melanie Griffith—hair swept into the same soft up-do she wore to the 1999 Oscars—sat in the front row beside Dakota Johnson, who filmed the processional on a disposable camera “so Stella has grainy, real memories, not Instagram perfection.” When the priest pronounced them married, the abbey bells rang 29 times, one for each year of Stella’s life.
The celebration spilled into the abbey’s barrel cellar where long tables of walnut and iron were set beneath fairy lights. Menu cards tied with raffia listed a paella of rabbit and artichokes, roasted Segovian suckling pig, and a vegetarian stack of piquillo peppers and Idiazábal cheese—every dish paired with vintages from the estate. Alex’s mother, Ellen Gruszynski, flew in from Michigan with jars of her own cherry preserves; they now sit atop each place setting as favors. Antonio and Melanie, divorced since 2015, shared a toast—Antonio in Spanish, Melanie in English—both ending with the same line: “May your love story be as adventurous as ours, only with a happier ending.”
Late in the evening the couple cut a four-tier almond cake soaked in amaretto and filled with orange-blossom buttercream—a flavor profile inspired by the preschool snack they shared at age three. Instead of a bouquet toss, Stella handed her lace garter to Dakota, joking, “You’re next—no pressure.” Guests danced under the stars until 3 a.m., shoes kicked off between vine rows, the abbey’s ancient stones echoing with laughter that felt part wedding, part family reunion, part home-coming.
When the last lantern was blown out, Stella and Alex drove away in a vintage silver Mercedes—Antonio’s first car in America—its cans clattering down the gravel path toward a future rooted in childhood friendship, watered by time, and now sealed beneath a Spanish moon that once watched a little girl chase fireflies through these same vineyards.
