By Viktoria Nasteva
Twenty-eight years and more than 60,000 bouquets later, Suzanne Calloway Fammartino is retiring from the floral industry.
Fammartino plans to spend retirement in Arizona and is seeking a buyer for her Love At First Sight Floral & Design store in Carmel. She opened the store nearly 20 years ago after moving from Miami, where she opened her first floral business, Lasting Impressions.
While Fammartino she was trying to grow Lasing Impressions, her mother’s health declined. She met her future husband, Gary, while tending to her mother in the hospital. Fammartino and her husband eventually moved to Carmel, she she opened Love At First Sight Floral & Design at W. 131st St.
The store has been in business for 18 years. Customers are sorry to see Fammartino retire.
“I honestly don’t know what we’ll do,” said Mary Bennett of the Carmel Clay Public Library, who has been receiving flowers from Fammartino since her son-in-law discovered the business online seven years ago, adding with a laugh that her husband might never get her flowers again.
“It will be a big loss,” Bennett said.
Fammartino is seeking a buyer who shares her values. She said the store might close if she doesn’t find a buyer by before she departs for Arizona in the coming weeks..
Fammartino said she will miss her customers.
“The spiritual connections I’ve had over the years have been amazing. I mean, sometimes they make me shiver,” Fammartino said.
