Wedding edition: Abbey Holmes and Keegan Brooksby’s unique nuptials in the remote Red Centre

Almost four months on from Abbey Holmes’ wedding, her voice still catches with emotion when she talks about how perfectly magical and unique it was.

She and fiance Keegan Brooksby had chosen the place — the ancient majesty of Uluru — and then left much of the detail to a trusted team of professionals, including wedding planner Alysia Bridger and florist Melissa D’Cruz.

Just before the ceremony, the couple popped their heads in to see the reception venue, at the Uluru Camel Farm, for the first time. Holmes, a Seven football commentator and star of SAS Australia, burst into tears.

Bridger had organised the wedding with minimal instructions and having never been to Uluru; D’Cruz had packed up a van full of flowers in Sydney and driven it the almost 3000km to the red centre. What they created, Holmes says, “was by far one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen in my life”.

“I get emotional even talking about it,” she says with a laugh. “They just completely and utterly transformed it into this open air, stunning event space. There was the red dirt, the white tablecloths, the floral arrangements on each table were out of this world. I’m so grateful.”

Holding their wedding day in the iconic but remote spot was the perfect choice for Holmes and Brooksby, a former AFL player who is now on staff at Hawthorn Football Club.

It was where Brooksby proposed back in 2020, in the first leg of a seven-week trip that took them from Adelaide through to the Northern Territory, across to Broome and down to Esperance. It also allowed Holmes to showcase another Australian tourism destination, which she passionately promotes through Backyard Bandits Australia.

“We could have gone with Adelaide, that’s where we’re both from originally. But we just felt as though we wanted to do something really special and something unique,” she says.

“We’ve lived all over the country between us — Adelaide, Darwin, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth. We thought, why not meet everybody in the middle? As soon as we floated the idea, that was what felt right for us.

“It was really special to have so many people travel from all over the country to the Red Centre that had never been before, and totally embrace it. They made a trip of it. They were doing every little tourism activity that you could do and every tour under the sun.”

It was the culmination of a romance that started when Holmes and Brooksby became each other’s first and only Bumble date. Holmes, in the midst of moving from Darwin back to South Australia for her second season with the Adelaide Crows, had always been adamant dating apps weren’t for her.

“I was driving over to Melbourne was one of my girlfriends and . . . and she said, ‘Abbs, you always complain about being single but you never actually do anything about it, you never go out, you never put yourself out there to meet someone. I’m going to make you a Bumble account’,” Holmes remembers. “I was driving so I couldn’t stop her — and now I am very, very thankful that she did.”

Brooksby was also moving back to Adelaide from the Gold Coast, where he played for the Suns (“pretty uncanny on the timing front,” Holmes admits).

She set their first date as a 3.30pm coffee in Glenelg, so they could feign separate dinner plans if things went badly. Instead, they went from coffee to a movie to dinner and then to sit on the beach.

“You know when a date goes for eight hours that you’re on to a pretty good thing,” Holmes says. “It got to about midnight and we were like, ‘oh gosh, we better go’. Then I saw him again the next day and we have been pretty much inseparable ever since.”

But when they had been engaged for two years, with hectic work schedules and no progress on their wedding plans, they knew it was time to hire Bridger.

“That’s the best thing that we did,” Holmes says. “We really did recognise that we needed help because if it was left up to us, we would get too busy and potentially, it would never happen. She just took on every ounce of stress that we would have had, no question was too silly or out of her depth. She just did everything that we asked for and really did make our dream come true. I’m so grateful to now have her as a great friend.”

When Holmes came to choose a dress, she enlisted friend and longtime stylist Lana Wilkinson and Sam Oglialoro, from Melbourne’s Oglia-Loro Couture, who has dressed her for several red carpet events.

The dress she ultimately wore was just the second she tried on — and the “polar opposite” of what she had always imagined. Holmes credits Wilkinson with convincing her to step outside her comfort zone.

“I thought going in that I’d go for something quite fitted with a bit of a train but I ended up with the big long train and the big long skirt,” Holmes says. “It was something that I never thought that I would do but I remember Lana turned to me and said, ‘we know what style dress that we can put on you and it works for any red carpet event, but this is your wedding. You want to feel different’.

Holmes and Brooksby opted for a “first look” on a walkway with a view of Uluru, which she rates as among the most emotional moments of the day. The couple sought permission from the area’s traditional owners to hold their nuptials so close to the sacred site.

“I had to go up behind Keegs with my posse of people all carrying my dress and my veil, and we had the countdown of three, two, one and then him turning around and seeing me for the first time — that was really special,” she says. “And just to have that time, just us two, before the craziness of a ceremony, that moment in particular is something that you’ll remember forever.”

Their ceremony location also made use of the spectacular landscape, styled by Bridger and complemented by the earthy-toned florals chosen by D’Cruz.

“The ceremony was another thing we didn’t even workshop with Alysia, we just let her run with it,” Holmes says. “When I walked up, it really did just blow me away because it just completely transformed this already incredibly naturally beautiful landscape into the most perfect event space.

“We wanted it to be about our love, first and foremost, but we wanted the natural beauty of the destination to speak to people; we didn’t want to over-style it, we didn’t want to make it something that it’s not. They hit the nail on the head.”

As soon as the ceremony was over, Holmes kicked off her shoes and ran through the red dirt.

“I haven’t even looked at the dress since, but it was definitely red by the end,” Holmes laughs.

“I’ve had so many people on social media be like ‘Oh my God the dress, the dress’ and I do get that but in saying that I don’t plan on wearing it again. And that very much is me to a tee, you know; I’m not much of a city girl and growing up I was the biggest tomboy you’d meet, always had some kind of sporting equipment tucked under my arm . . .

“Running around in bare feet and having running races with my dad in this magnificent dress, I think it really added to how special the day was.”

Back at the reception, Holmes swapped her long skirt for a short one to celebrate with 100 friends and family, catered by AAT Kings. “Just having all the people that you love the most surrounding you, that’s what it’s all about,” she says.

Holmes and Keegan topped off the celebration with a seven-week honeymoon across eight countries, including France, Italy, Czech Republic, the US and Maldives.

It was a fitting way to end what Holmes calls “by far, the biggest year of my life”. She competed in the Coast to Coast, a 30km mountain run in New Zealand in February, then flew to Jordan to film SAS Australia a week later. She returned at 8pm on the Friday before football season started and was on the boundary by Saturday morning.

“With the AFL and AFLW crossover, I didn’t have a weekend off until December, then throw in there that we got married on a Monday in November, we bought a house that Saturday, which we’re settling on next week, and then we went on the seven-week extravaganza around the world. It was just massive,” Holmes says.”

“At the end of every year, and I’m like, ‘how is anything ever gonna top that?’ And then every year seems to get bigger and better. I’m really looking forward to seeing what this year brings.”