Francesca had been single for a long time, and so her sister persuaded her to do online dating.
She wasn’t too keen on the idea, so took it with a pinch of salt – searching for criteria such as 6’6 and above, mixed race, must live in London – not too picky, of course – and she had one result.
She found this unusual, suggesting that normally you’d receive around 500 results.
She said: ‘From the second I saw his picture, I turned to my mum and said: this is my husband.’
When Francesca saw Casey on an online dating website in 2009, she immediately set up a profile and contacted him.
However, after waiting for over a month for Casey to reply, Francesca realised his dating profile had been inactive for 90 days and unfortunately, there was no other way of contacting him.
Having still not received a reply after 30 days of waiting, she became angry.
‘This is the man of my dreams, I have no doubt in my mind this is my future husband!’ she said.
She decided to call the website, asking them to put her in touch with Casey. But they told her to broaden her horizons.
She begged them for his name, but they turned her away. She was so frustrated she began to cry.
She took the next step – printing out his picture and putting it on her vision board.
Every time a date went wrong or she’d had a bad day, she’d phone her mum or sister and cry, wondering why she couldn’t find Casey.
Every day for three years, Francesca would visualize her future with her ‘dream guy’ and even called Casey her husband to her family and friends.
And then something very strange happened: Francesca was set up on a blind date.