Laura Marie Acker was visiting her mother in Lewes, Del., in June 2023, when she joined a group of her mom’s friends for a Ouija board night. “During the session, my father came through via letters and numbers with a surprising message,” Ms. Acker said. “I would be engaged in 2024.”
When she tried Ouija again five months later, she said another message from her father, who had died in 2016, advised her to keep going to church. “I thought the whole thing was crazy.”
It was the end of 2023, and Ms. Acker continued to experience an “unsatisfactory dating life” after years of living in Miami and New York before moving to Charleston, S.C., in 2020. “I didn’t hold out much hope because I’ve always dated men with no interest in marriage or family,” she said. “My career was a priority.”
Things changed in April when Ms. Acker, 39, met Evan Alexander Menscher, 41, through a friend from her Bible study group in Charleston. Her friend knew Mr. Menscher, a divorced father, through their daughters’ ballet class and quizzed him about his interest in marrying again. The friend felt he and Ms. Acker were a match and introduced them via group text.