Edwin "Ed" Vedejs was born in Riga, Latvia to Velta (nee Robežnieks) and Nikolajs Vedējs. Not long after his birth, the German occupation of Latvia during World War II occurred followed by the Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944. These events forced his family to settle in the Fischbach Displaced Persons camp in Germany for six years. In 1950, they emigrated to the United States and first settled in Fort Atkinson, WI. They eventually moved to Grand Rapids, MI.
He attended Grand Rapids Junior College for a few years before transferring to the University of Michigan where he received a BS degree in 1962. He moved to the University of Wisconsin and joined the group of Professor  for his Ph.D. studies (Progress toward the total synthesis of terramycin), which he completed in 1966. From 1966–67, he did post-doctoral research on the total synthesis of prostaglandins at Harvard University in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Professor E. J. Corey.