LAURA Freeman-Powell hoped her marriage would start with a bang when she arranged a surprise rocket launch for her husband.

But instead the Oxford couple are now searching for a lost memento of their wedding.

The night before her wedding, Mrs Freeman-Powell, nee Glister, wrote a moving love letter to her husband-to-be Aaron.

She attached it to a small model rocket, a nod to his hobby of rocket-making.

On June 20 Mr Freeman-Powell, an engineer, sent it high in the sky above Marston.

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But instead of the letter drifting safely down for the 23-year-old to read, it got carried away by the wind.

Mrs Freeman-Powell, 24, said: “The rocket is made out of cardboard and you can buy those little gunpowder engines that shoot it off.

“Aaron makes them but I used a kit off the internet. It’s become a bit of a family tradition to launch them on special occasions.

“I attached this love letter to it on the outside. It was just saying how much I love him and all the reasons I love him and some promises that I made to him.“

Surrounded by his family, Mr Freeman-Powell launched the rocket on a green on Marston Road, by Oxford Brookes University.

Oxford Mail:

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Mrs Freeman-Powell, a forensic scientist, said: “The rocket launched but it went too high and the parachute wasn’t really big enough so it just drifted off.

“Aaron ran after it through the streets for quite a while but it went behind some trees so he had to give up.”

Now, five months after the rocket went missing, she is hoping someone in Marston will have found the memento.

On Tuesday she took to the airwaves to promote the appeal, appearing on Greg James’s drivetime show on Radio 1.

She said: “I know I’ve left it a bit late but it’s only now that I’ve seen footage [of the launch] and seen how sad he looked when it disappeared.

“The look on his face, I had to try to do something to get it back.

“If someone had picked it up hopefully it was something they realised needed to be kept and just didn’t know how to give it back.

“It’s everything that I wanted to say to him. It’s heart-felt and it would be great to have it back in time for our first Christmas.”

The young couple met in St Aldate’s Church, where they got married four years later, while students at Jesus College. Mr Freeman-Powell said: “The sentimental value of having the letter and the rocket is immense. It would be wonderful to have it back.”

Fireworks expert Karl Mitchell-Shead, of Spyrotechnics, said the rocket could not have travelled far.

“They’re just little toy models, but they are incredibly powerful."

 

WHAT THE LETTER SAID

Hello husband-to-be,
If you are reading this letter I will assume there has been a successful rocket launch. I didn't think an important family occasion could go past without a rocket and so here is your wedding rocket.
Tomorrow in church I will be making my vows to you but if I was writing my own vows, maybe they would go something like this:
I promise to say I love you all the time
I promise to always try to make you laugh
I promise to do as many new and exciting things together as we can
I promise always to be honest with you
I promise to support you in everything
I promise to pray with you and encourage you in your relationship with God
I promise to hold your hand even when you are emanating too much body heat
I promise to grow as old as I possibly can with you and to still tell you I fancy you when you are wrinkly

 

 



 

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