T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach Took Out a Marriage License in Arkansas — the Wedding Is Getting Real

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2026 — The paperwork is the tell. Nearly a year after announcing their engagement, T.J. Holmes and Amy Robach have applied for a marriage license in Washington County, Arkansas — the clearest sign yet that a wedding is genuinely on the calendar. The county clerk confirmed the September 18 filing to USA TODAY on October 5, and TMZ was first with the story.

The filingSeptember 18, on the record

Marriage licenses are public records, and this one leaves little to interpretation. Holmes and Robach applied for the license on September 18 in Washington County, Arkansas, the county clerk confirmed to USA TODAY. TMZ broke the story on October 2, with the clerk telling TMZ the couple had filed in Arkansas — a notable choice, given that the pair built their television careers in New York City. JustJared, following the TMZ report, confirmed the same particulars: the September 18 filing in Washington County, with no public word yet on where the ceremony itself will take place.

USA TODAY has reached out to the couple’s representative for comment. What the filing does not reveal is nearly as interesting as what it does: neither the couple nor the clerk has said when the ceremony will take place, or where. A license is a legal step, not a wedding announcement — but it is the kind of step couples take when the plans stop being hypothetical.

Why ArkansasA home-state wedding

The location is personal. Holmes, 49, was born in West Memphis, Arkansas, and USA TODAY notes the filing marks a return to his home state. The couple has not confirmed that the ceremony itself will take place in Arkansas — for now, the license only establishes where the paperwork was filed — but choosing his home state for the legal step is the strongest hint yet about where the wedding is headed.

It also fits the way the two have described their plans: deliberately, and on their own terms. In a May interview, the couple teased that they had settled on a wedding date without sharing the timing publicly, USA TODAY notes. “There is a way we want to get married that we haven’t revealed necessarily, but it would be very special to us,” Holmes said. “We can’t say what that is. That’s a big thing for us.”

How they got hereFour years in the spotlight

The road to the Washington County clerk’s office has been one of the most scrutinized romances in recent television history. Holmes and Robach’s relationship became public in November 2022, when the two — then co-anchors of “GMA3” and married to other people — were photographed holding hands. ABC News pulled them from the air, and a December 2022 internal memo said the relationship had become “an internal and an external distraction,” though it did not violate company policy, USA TODAY notes. The pair exited the network the following month; a network spokesperson told Page Six at the time that it was “best for everyone” that they “move on.”

The personal fallout was total. Holmes filed for divorce from Marilee Fiebig in December 2022. Robach has said she was separated from Andrew Shue in the summer of 2022, and their divorce was finalized in March 2023, per USA TODAY. In a twist worthy of its own headline, Page Six notes that Shue and Fiebig have since begun dating each other. Holmes has a daughter, Sabine, with Fiebig, and shares two children, Brianna and Jaiden, with ex-wife Amy Ferson; Robach has two daughters, Ava and Annalise, with ex-husband Tim McIntosh.

Through it all, the couple stayed together — and took control of the narrative. They launched the “Amy & T.J.” podcast, where they have discussed the pressure surrounding their relationship and the cost of losing their television jobs, TMZ notes. And when they got engaged, they made sure the news came from them first: announcing it on the podcast in October 2025, about a month after it happened. “We are sharing with all of you that we are engaged, and we’ve been engaged for just about a month now,” Robach said at the time, per Page Six. Holmes added: “We wanted to let you all know before anybody else was able to. We’ve learned that lesson, I guess, in the past about our relationship.”

What comes nextThe countdown, quietly

Celebrity weddings have a way of turning into public productions — Simu Liu’s France ceremony was a full destination affair — but every signal from Holmes and Robach points the other way. The May interview promised something “very special” and deliberately undisclosed; the Arkansas filing suggests intimacy over spectacle. Even their rare public outings have been low-key by celebrity-couple standards.

For now, the timeline belongs to them. The engagement itself was announced on the October 14, 2025 episode of the couple’s “Amy & T.J.” podcast — about a month after it actually happened, JustJared notes — and Holmes confirmed during a May appearance on “Bill and Giuliana: The Podcast” that a wedding date had been set, though it remains undisclosed. The license is filed, the date — per Holmes — is picked, and the details remain theirs to reveal. After four years of having their relationship narrated by everyone else, that may be the most telling part of all.