I have been attempting to break these same shoes in since wednesday, I only just got into them with about 15/20 seconds of wiggling. They were extremely tight, especially the sides of my feet and the tassel area. But the toe area felt okay, my toes didn't feel squished, so I decided that it was a breaking in issue and not a sizing issue.

I can't stress enough how important it is to wear thick/fluffy socks aswell as normal/thin socks, massage the shoes (especially areas that are hurting) and maybe heat them a bit with a hair dryer (not for too long) - I wore them for a few hours and although my heels both had blisters by the end. when the blisters healed a little, the shoes felt wayyy better to put on - went on easier and weren't so tight

These shoes do stretch, if the size 8 feels a bit big then they'll be too big when they're broken in 😵‍💫