A YOUNG couple from Witney who released balloons to celebrate their engagement were stunned to find themselves appearing in the local news.

Luke Turner and Jade Hardy, of Colwell Drive, marked their engagement with a party on Saturday. The following day, when clearing up, they decided to write messages on balloons and send them off into the sky.

Little did they know they would turn up more than 20 miles away in Chilton, near Didcot, that night, discovered by a 15-year-old girl who was walking her dog.

The couple were shocked when, the next day, they found their balloons had appeared on the Witney Gazette website.

Trainee accountant Miss Hardy, 18, said: “My cousin from Oxford contacted me and asked me if we’d released the balloons.

"When I told her we had she told me she had seen it online and I needed to have a look.

"It’s crazy. I didn’t expect it to appear in the news at all.

"It’s all a bit surreal. I didn’t think they would travel that far.”

The balloons, including some in the shape of a ring and a heart, were spotted by Eloise Martin as she walked with her Cavapoo, Leo.

The 15-year-old, who placed them in a tall bush in the hope that the wind would carry them further still, was eager to let the couple know how far the balloons travelled.

Written on the balloons was the date they were released (16.07.17), a postcode (OX28 5NJ Witney, Oxon, England) and a question (Where have I landed?).

Eloise said: “There was no house number so I thought the Witney Gazette might be able to get a message out there so the couple would know how far they had travelled.”

A story and picture of Eloise with the balloons appeared on the Witney Gazette and Oxford Mail websites, urging the couple or anyone who knew them to get in touch.

Miss Hardy contacted the paper to say she had released the balloons – as well as a few others which were yet to turn up anywhere.

It wasn’t the first out-of-the-ordinary thing to occur in Miss Hardy and Mr Turner’s relationship.

When asking Miss Hardy to marry him, the scaffolder, 21, had an elephant hand her the engagement ring at Woburn Safari Park in Bedfordshire on June 14.

After being proposed to via an elephant’s trunk and marking the news with their engagement celebrations, Miss Hardy said there’s pressure on the wedding to be spectacular.

She said: “It’s going to have to be something big.”

No date has been set for the happy couple’s wedding, with the pair saying they want to spend some time enjoying their engagement.