MANY men woo with bouquets of velvety red roses, lavishly beribboned and wrapped in a ruffle of tissue. Not Steve Brill, an expert in foraging for edibles in the wild, author of "The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook" (Harvard Common Press, 2002) and a man who knows what to do with a cattail shoot: peel and slice it, and toss it in a chilled yogurt soup.

He woos with violets and sassafras, plucked from the ground.

On an April day in 1998, Mr. Brill (Wildman, as he is known) was leading a foraging tour in Central Park. He was wearing his usual uniform: pith helmet, binoculars around his neck and a shovel hanging from his shorts. What caught his eye that day was not just things green but also brunette. It was Leslie-Anne Skolnik, a freelance medical writer and editor from Scarsdale, N.Y. She has brown hair burnished with gold, big brown eyes and a curvy figure.

That day, she became the teacher's pet. He fed her violets. "They have a mild taste, like lettuce," said Mr. Brill, who finds the flowers south of Belvedere Castle. "She loves tea, so I helped her pull out some sassafras." North of Bow Bridge, he fed her Japanese knotweed, a relative of rhubarb.

"He showed us plantain, a mundane leafy plant that grows on the ground," said Ms. Skolnik, who learned that if you get a flea or mosquito bite, you can cure the itch if you crush the leaf and rub it on the bite. "He was so loving to the little kids," she said, recalling how Mr. Brill took a child by both hands and swung him in the air. She was smitten.

Mr. Brill, 53, grew up in Kew Gardens, Queens. He trained himself in foraging - he has a degree in psychology - and taught classes in cooking natural foods. In 1986, after Henry Stern, the New York City parks commissioner & had him arrested for eating dandelions in Central Park, Mr. Stern had the bright idea of hiring the Wildman to lead tours there.

Ms. Skolnik, 38, is not yet a pure vegetarian. "Leslie was omnivorous before she met Steve," said T. P. Enders, her brother-in-law. "She was known to love a medium-rare steak." Her parents, Edward L. Skolnik, a lawyer in Scarsdale, and Rebecca Skolnik, a secretary, are not foragers. As Mr. Skolnik put it, "We buy our groceries."

On that April day, however, what the Wildman liked, Ms. Skolnik liked. And not just nuts and berries. She loves to sing choral music and has performed in Handel's "Messiah" at Carnegie Hall. He sings and whoops and claps his hands at the drop of an acorn. He explores the scientific facts of every wild edible. She has the exacting mind of a medical writer. By fall 2000, he had proposed in her Fleetwood kitchen.

In 2001, they took a boat from Argentina to Antarctica. "We foraged some wild edibles in Ushuaia before getting on the ship, like ribbons of kelp and shaggy mane mushrooms," Ms. Skolnik said. "But the ship's chef didn't feel like cooking it." The ship tossed in rough seas. Plates flew. Tables tipped. Love survived.

On June 16, they were married at Glen Island Park, on the edge of Long Island Sound in New Rochelle, N.Y. It was the first marriage for both. The Wildman wore his pith helmet and a tuxedo. Ms. Skolnik was in a white gown embroidered with a scattering of pearls. She had foraged the dress." "I got it on eBay," she said.

Since many of the 40 guests were, naturalists, professional or amateur, they spent a lot of the time peering at the grass and rocks rather than the lapping water. When the Wildman arrived, he dived into the grass and came up with a handful of poor man's pepper, a tiny mustard green, which he offered his guests. Moments later, he had handfuls of juneberries, which resemble wild blueberries.

After the ceremony, guests nibbled vegetarian hors d'oeuvres like grape leaves stuffed with brown rice and golden raisins and sipped pale pink apple cinnamon tea. Later, they drove into Flushing, Queens, for a Chinese banquet at Buddha Bodhai Vegetarian Restaurant. The banquet had 10 courses, but as the rabbi, Shaul Praver, said of the couple when he blessed them, "They will never starve."