Stream It Or Skip It: 'The Groomsmen: Last Dance' on Hallmark+, where the runaway bride is finally revealed (2025)

The Groomsmen: Last Dance is the final film in the Hallmark+ Groomsmen trilogy. In the last film of the series, Tyler Hynes stars as Jackson, a doting single dad who moves to Italy to be with his daughter Betty. While he’s there, he resists the charms of a local woman named Gabriella so he can concentrate on parenting. But when Betty reveals all the ways Jackson is sabotaging her happiness and his own by being so single-minded, he eventually opens his heart up to love. If you loved the first two Groomsmen movies, you’ll be sorry this is the last one.

THE GROOMSMEN: LAST DANCE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: We’re back at the wedding that kicked off this whole story, the one for Danny’s sister Hannah. It was here that Pete (B.J. Britt) met Chelsea (Heather Hemmens) –the plot of the first movie! – and where Danny (Jonathan Bennett) learned that his friend and manager Zack (Alexander Lincoln) was dating another guy named Nolan –the plot of the second! And it’s here that Jackson (Tyler Hynes) learns that his daughter Betty is about to move to Italy with her mother.

The Gist: In the third and final film of this series, The Groomsmen: Last Dance, we finally get to know what Jackson’s deal is. We already knew he’s an agent to influencers and he’s a doting dad to teenage daughter Betty, but his backstory starts to get filled in a bit. After Danny’s wedding in Greece, Betty and her mom Tricia moved to Italy. It’s devastating to Jackson, but he’s got a solid co-parenting relationship with Trish, so when she tells him she has to leave Italy for a month for work, Jackson, who is growing disillusioned with his own job, thinks it’s a great opportunity for a change of pace to go spend the month on the Italian coast with his kid.

As Jackson cruises into his daughter’s town, he has a close call with a pedestrian, a gorgeous Italian named Gabriella who immediately chews him out for being a distracted American tourist, driving and talking on his cell phone with no regard for his surroundings. It’s your classic meet-cute – they are instant enemies, until they start running into each other everywhere and slowly warm to each other. Gabriella also happens to be Betty and Tricia’s landlord, and she also runs a local restaurant with her mother. Basically, she’s inescapable.

Jackson decides to help Gabriella with her restaurant’s website and branding since that’s his job in real life, and it’s also a welcome distraction for him because Betty feels like he’s hanging around her and her friends too much. After helping her with work, Gabriella comes over to make a meal for Jackson and Betty (this thrills Betty, who has secretly been pulling strings to get them together), but Jackson starts to panic when he feels like he’s getting too close to Gabriella and he abruptly cuts off the relationship before it even begins.

When the town’s local masquerade festival rolls around – and Danny and Pete make a surprise visit to Italy for it – Jackson shares a dance with a mystery dancer (it’s obviously Gabriella) and it reminds him that it’s okay for him to have feelings for someone.

Jackson keeps trying to suppress any romantic desires he has, but for what? All he ever says is that he’s not ready for a relationship, but it comes down to Betty telling it like it is. She confronts him one day to tell him he’s been coddling her, when he drops her off at school and picks her up every day, it makes her feel like. child and she only has two friends because Jackson just hovers over her. He explains that he’s protective, and that’s when Betty explains that he’s overprotective. Of both her, and of his heart.

When Jackson decides to open up a little and take Gabriella on a visit to her father’s vineyard –where she plans to ask him to sign a contract to merge with her mother’s restaurant ans she has to be the intermediary since her parents are estranged after their divorce – their car breaks down and the end up spending the night with her grizzled, gruff old dad. The two men bond, as protective fathers to daughters they love whose own marriages didn’t work. Jackson convinces Gabriella’s father to sign the contract, and in the process, Jackson realizes that he needs to open his heart up, lest he become a grizzled, gruff old dad himself.

As our mystery bride, the one who’s been narrating all three films, reveals that Jackson and Gabriella finally got together, we cut back to her at the Irish pub she’s been hiding out in, as her own groom arrives. This is when we finally learn that the bride is Betty and the groom is Milo, Danny’s nephew (he had been trying and failing to flirt with Betty during Hannah’s wedding – guess he eventually succeeded!). And we also learn why Betty ran away from her own wedding to this groom that she claims she loves so much: it’s simply because she and Milo don’t have the same sprawling, epic love story that the three groomsmen had. No adorable meet-cute, no roller-coaster relationship that spanned the globe. Milo explains that that’s not true, they do have an epic love story, and he proceeds to show her the arcade game that they used to play as a kid, with a high-scorer listed as “MLB.” Betty always assumed that was the name her Uncle Danny used, since he’s a baseball player, but Milo explains that he’s actually the high-scorer and the initials stand for “Milo Loves Betty.” They return to their wedding where – with Jackson, Danny and Pete at their side –they tie the knot.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The entire franchise is a little like Four Weddings and a Funeral (minus the funeral), spread across multiple movies, but this particular installment reminds me of Hallmark’s movie from earlier this year, Two Scoops of Italy, about an American who finds love with a gelato maker on a trip to Italy.

Our Take: Well, color me charmed by this entire adventure of The Groomsmen, from the first movie to the last. I looked forward to this third film in the franchise the most of all of them, maybe because I secretly have a favorite groomsman in Jackson and I was eager for his love story, but I was also looking forward to seeing how the mystery bride’s story wrapped up. While I did have an inkling that it was Betty (who else could it be?), it was satisfying nonetheless to see how it all unfolded.

While Jackson’s romance with Gabriella played out similarly to the previous love stories, I actually feel a little cheated that we didn’t get to see a big wedding between the two. But I can forgive that because what made this film all the more appealing with seeing Tyler Hynes and Chloe Raphael’s relationship as Jackson and Betty provide the real emotional heft. Seeing Hynes go full protective dad is, let’s be real, kinda hot, but what stands out is the chemistry between the two actors whose relationship feels warm and familial and real. Weddings don’t typically make me emotional, but when both Jackson and Betty (who now calls herself Elizabeth) toast one another, it’s possible I had something in my eye.

My notes: If I have but one complaint it’s that young Betty (Raphael) and her older counterpart, the mystery bride now known as Elizabeth (Lily Dodsworth-Evans) don’t necessarily seem like the same person. While young Betty is mischievous and tomboyish, Elizabeth is a bit more demure and proper, even down to her insistence at not being called Betty. Narratively, it makes sense to make her distinguishable so we don’t immediately guess who she is in the first movie, but with Betty being such an integral character, I wish Elizabeth sparkled a little more. But ultimately, that’s not a dealbreaker for me, and Last Dance tied up all the loose ends and gave every one of these delightful characters the happy ending they deserve. What more could you want?

Parting Shot: As everyone dances at Betty and Milo’s wedding, the familiar opening notes to “Shake Your Groove Thing” play. Betty has requested the song so that Jackson, Pete and Danny can do their famous choreographed dance to the music, which they came up with when they met as kids in camp. The three men take to the dance floor and lead the crowd in a lively dance.

Performance Worth Watching: Chloe Raphael, who plays young Betty, sparkles with sweetness and charm. She manages to convey “exasperated teen” without falling into whiny stereotypes while also proving to be a perfect fourth member of the Groomsmen squad.

Memorable Dialogue: “Remember all those times you walked me to school in Italy?” Betty asks Jackson and he hesitantly walks her down the aisle to her own wedding. “Those were just practice runs.”

Our Call: The Groomsmen: Last Dance finishes what the first two films started and is a satisfying watch from the first wedding to the last. Give yourself a little give and binge all three. STREAM IT!