[FrereeDoulley]

When my daughter was married, my wife and I supplied the wedding icons and had them painted by V. Krassovsky in San Francisco. The wedding was also in SF. Vova was a bit late in starting the icons and when he delivered them (on the day before the wedding), they were dry to the touch but the varnish was obviously not fully cured. He would not have given them to me at this time except for the fact that the wedding was to be the next day and so they were needed. Even though they were not fully dry (as I said dry to the touch but not fully cured), the icons were blessed and carried in the wedding and venerated by the new couple and experienced absolutely no ill effects. I think this waiting for a year thing is maybe a one time thing referring to a very specific case that was then somehow generalized by a particular person into a general "rule".

Fr David