You yourself say that your initial budget was too small and now you're increasing it. Perhaps even your budget is still not realistic for a custom home project in your location? What are the costs of an existing home where you want to build? Those will be cheaper to buy than custom. Is the projected cost of the new home coming in 50%-100% above those homes? That's generally the range for true custom.

A mediocre architect gives a customer what they ask for. A good architect gives them what they need. A great architect gives them what they didn't know they needed, and only 20% above initial budget. The other 30% gets spent anyway during the build by change orders.

There are wants and there are needs. This amount of money would put us way over the price of other houses in the area. We are in the country.
Thank you for your input!

Meet with the person with the "best bid" (you will need to define "best" for yourself...be it price or overall vision) and talk with them about where things MUST be cut to fit budget. You have been offered bids (which I'm assuming you paid for). Now you take ONE of those bids and have it refined to fit your budget.

Obviously the "budget" was not meeting your vision. The architects took every "wish" and put them in there. Now it is time to "cull" the wish list to get it to fit into your budget. Work with the person that had a vision closest to your own. Someone you felt you got along well with and then start again with them.

If not, you will need to sit down with someone else and start (ie. pay) again. I would ask the architect what it was in YOUR presentation that made him/her think to add in so much "stuff" that s/he thought double the price was "warranted". If only one of them came back "over the top" then it probably had something to do with how they "heard" you. If 3 different people came up with 3 different bids that were over the top, then I would question (no disrespect intended) what it was you were saying that brought them to the "way out there" type of pricing.

It may be your "wishes" were interpreted to be "must haves" and were put in. All three were well beyond your price which tells me your vision has a very large price tag. It would be worth your while to sit down with your favourite and try to carve up the picture in your head to fit the frame work of your budget.

By the sounds of it, you might be better served selling and purchasing something that is already built. As for "in the country", Canada is a big place. The USA is a little smaller. Is there a particular "part of the country" (like a state or province) that you are in?

Thank you so much for the feedback! I will follow your advise and meet with the contractor I like best and take it from there...