If you want elegance at your party, get a harpist. Or a string quartet. It’s a whole different atmosphere than if you played your “Greatest Hits of the ’70s” CD, it really is.

You might call Alishia Smock, for example, who started playing a harp at social events when she was 16. At the age of 27, she’s now making a career out of performances and lessons.

In the summer, it’s weddings, and in December, it’s lots of company parties. She has played at corporate dinners at classy venues such as Salisbury House and at big public events such as the Festival of Trees gala.

And, yes, she has heard your clever request for “Stairway to Heaven” before.

To prepare for a wedding, Smock invites the couple to her home for a consultation. “I’m very concerned about the feel of the ceremony,” she says. “What’s appropriate for one couple is not for another.”

No slacker, she recently did two weddings in one day. “One was in a church, with spiritual music and a cake and punch reception,” she says. “Right after that, I did one at the Blank Park Zoo, playing music by the Beatles and Bette Midler. That was a fun day for me.”

Smock came back to Des Moines after attending college – and playing harp gigs on the side — at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. No doubt it’s fun to play at events high in the Sears Tower and the John Hancock Building, which she did. However, “compared to Chicago events, I have found the clientele here much more approachable,” she says. “I can sit down and have a chat with CEOs; several of them know a lot about my life.”

Unfortunately, Smock plans to move back to Chicago next March to get married.

Fortunately, we’ll still have fine musicians like The 42nd Street Quartet available for your upscale party needs.

Jackie Stanek, Ben Munson, Don Sieberns and Esther Boatman, all members of the Des Moines Symphony, used to get together to play as a quartet just for fun. Then they thought: Hey, maybe we could get paid for this.

“We had some requests for weddings. Then I set up our Web site (fssq.tripod.com), and we got more,” Stanek says. “Since the end of July, we have played about two events a month, mostly weddings.”

They play before the service, punch up the drama for the entrances and exit, and sometimes get invited to play at the reception, too.

People are thinking “classical” when they book a string quartet, but a band has to be flexible.

“We have a wedding coming up where there’s one piece they wanted to have but didn’t think we could play,” Stanek says. During a bus tour of North Africa, the couple met in Casablanca. So they figured if “As Time Goes By” was good enough for Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman in the classic movie, it would be just right for them.

Stanek found the music. Probably won’t be too tough for symphony players to master.

The 42nd Street Quartet also has played some corporate events, but never a dinner party in a private home. “That would be great,” Stanek says — leaving the next move up to you.